No Man's Land

Nurse Hamden wheeled me down the wood-panelled hallway in a creaking wicker bath chair while I clutched my walking cane and a shoebox of personal effects. At the end of the passageway, she opened a door to reveal a room full of furniture shrouded in dust sheets and tea chests stacked three high. Straight ahead, a frail evening light peeked through French windows and cast the autumnal trees beyond into stark silhouette.

   “Well,” she said, standing before me. “What do we think, sir?”

   “Hmm,” I said, snorting behind my bandages. “It’s got potential.”

   “Let’s see what we can do,” she said, removing a dust sheet from a mirrored dressing table and lighting a galvanised-steel oil lamp. 

   The room’s not ideal, but it offered a modicum of tranquillity compared to the lofty refectory that housed the surviving guardsmen from my regiment. Their painful night-time groans and curses were enough to drive anyone spare, and I admit to banishing murderous thoughts as I’d struggled to sleep. We’re not the first wounded men to seek sanctuary here, and won’t be the last. Holker Hall has hosted hundreds of convalescing soldiers since Lord and Lady Cartmel vacated their home. I assume they agreed to shift all their furniture into my new quarters on the condition it was a safe storage area and they’d return after the war to find their possessions intact.

   “Now,” she said, taking my shoe box. “Let’s make it feel like home.”

   Nurse Hamden knew the routine. She arranged my crumpled pictures, letters and wristwatch on the dressing table and located the glass for my toothbrush. 

She then prodded the smouldering wood in the fireplace until it rekindled with a gentle roar, warming the room and adding a hint of smoke to the air. 

   The wrought iron bed opposite had seen better days, however she turned it down with reassuring precision; tightening the hospital corners and plumping its crisp linen pillows in ‘two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ 

   “Here we go, Captain McDermott,” she said, bright as sixpence. “Your very own room with a view,”

   “Who could ask for more, nurse?”

   “Will there be anything else, sir?”

   “Well, yes.” I said, squinting my remaining eye. “A new face, if that’s not too much trouble.”

   She bit her lip and turned to leave.

   “That wasn’t called for,” I said.

   “Very good, sir,” she said, avoiding my gaze at the door. “My colleague will be with you first thing to remove your dressings.”

   “Thank you, nurse,” I said, glimpsing my reflection in the dressing table’s vanity mirror. 

   “Just ring the bell if there’s anything else.”

   “I’ll be fine,” I whispered, grimacing behind my blood-crusted bandages.

*  *  *

Despite the cheery flower beds, neat borders, and manicured shrubs outside, there was an eerie presence within my quiet room. As the light outside diminished, I felt the hairs on my spine prickle as my skin goose-bumped. I recall shivering and looked around as if I expected to see someone, but I was alone. I shook my head and nudged my wheelchair closer to the crackling embers. There was a presence nearby that I couldn’t define. I was sure I wasn’t alone.

   The kerosene lamp’s cavorting light sent shadows flitting around the walls and, in my exhausted mind, the white veiled shapes looked like a host of misshapen gargoyles. It was as if I’d stumbled on the brooding members of a disfigured family biding their time in limbo until destiny reunited them with loved ones or disclosed their ghastly fate.

   I wheeled myself over to the dressing table and reached for my watch. My clumsy bandaged fingers were all but useless for delicate manoeuvres and I had to prod the timepiece round with my clawed fist. Craning my neck to check its face, I saw a shimmering movement in the mirror’s reflection. I looked behind me but there was nothing there, except for the Cartmel’s covered possessions.

   Rat-a-tat-tat!

   “Captain McDermott?” A woman’s voice. “I’ve got your ampoule---”

   “Yes,” I said, shaking my head. “Please come in.”

The nurse prepared a syringe as I pulled up my sleeve. I knew I’d never get used to this. My veins had had enough of this junk.

   “Can I get you a glass of---?”

   “These itchy bandages are driving me round the twist, nurse.”

   “It’d be best if they remain until the morning, sir.”

   “Fine!” I snapped, turning towards the mirror. 

   “Will that be all, sir?”

   “Thank you.”

The young woman disappeared from view in the mirror and I heard the door click shut. I recall raising my shaking fists in the air. Tomorrow morning was a lifetime away, and I’d had enough. My men and I had suffered beyond comprehension and pushed ourselves to the limit. We’d followed orders and thrown ourselves at the enemy with every ounce of life in our tired bodies. I brought my bandaged claws down on the table’s wooden surface with a heavy - Thud!

  That hurt. It felt better, but it was painful. My fists were on fire, but I felt a lot better.

   I’d had enough of these bandages and hiding away from life. I wanted to know the truth now. It was going to hurt, but I wanted some honesty.

   I raised my swollen right hand and hooked the tip of one finger under my facial bandage. I yanked and pulled until it loosened up. Gripping it between two fingers, I stretched the fabric until it came adrift and extended my arm. It unravelled like a slack spring, and as I stretched my arm back and forth, it sagged down. I tugged it again and the whole wrapping fell to the ground.

   I couldn’t recognise my reflection in the silvered glass. My scarred face was engrained with ravines of dried blood. As the pain-killer kicked in, I stared into the mirror; absorbed in the details of my mutilated features. My pale flesh writhed like a bucket of snakes; a mass of scales sliding and slithering in sticky phlegm. My narrow eye glistened for a moment as a salty tear burned my eyelid, and its reflection flickered like a flashlight in a dark hinterland; a glimmer of hope in a dreadful space beyond all reason. It was a beacon glinting in uncharted territory, heralding an incoming barrage.

   Ka-Boom! Ka-Boom! Ka-Boom!

A deluge of cannon fire flashes behind me, pounding the earth with mighty incendiaries that blast the ground asunder. 

   Rat-a-tat-tat! 

   Machine gun fire. 

   Rat-a-tat-tat!

   The terrible music of distant warfare.

   Rat-a-tat-tat!

   We never stood a chance.

   All went silent when the order came to advance. Our side wasn’t stupid enough to shell us as we ventured into no-man's-land. That was the enemy’s job.

At the arranged hour, I recall blowing my shrill whistle – PEEEEP!! - I was the first to climbing up the wooden ladder. I raised my loaded pistol and lead my company of men over the top. 

   Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!

   The enemy machine guns flashed and sparked like furious Catherine wheels as we approached them across the wasteland. I’ll never forget the screams of my brave men; all mowed down like fields of barley at harvest time. 

   And all the while….

   Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!

   Faces I recognise assembled behind me in the mirror. Open-mouthed, but silent now. Their screaming faces disappear one by one into the transient void of my new quarters. Lost once more to memory. Young men destroyed. A generation decimated yet again. It’s my daily nightmare. It’ll never go away. Never leave me alone. 

   I reached down for my cane. My straining arm raised it aloft. 

   I bring it down on the mirror - CRACK!  

   The last of those faces disperse into tinkling fragments. 

God knows how I survived. Somehow, I made it, but not intact. 

There are bits of me that are lost in no-man's-land forever.

*  *  *

   Rat-a-tat-tat! 

I open my eye and shudder, looking around my room. I’ve woken up in my bath chair. The chilly dawn air nips my raw face.

   Rat-a-tat-tat!

There’s a hollow knock of bare knuckles on wood.

   “Captain!” It’s a woman’s voice. “Captain McDermott---”

   “Come in, nurse!” My voice was croaky and my head tingled as the blood coursed through my body. I’d survived another night.

   The door creaked open. A young woman I didn’t recognise entered the room. She was carrying a tray with fresh dressings and bandages.

   “Morning, sir,” she said, preparing her supplies.

   “I’m afraid,” I said, shying away from her, “I’m a bit of a mess.”

   “Let’s get you cleaned up, sir,” she said, smiling.

   I turn to see her bright and cheerful face. Her smile is open and honest.

   “I’ve got to say, nurse…” I hesitate. My dry eye feels like it’s covered in grit. “You have a beautiful smile, but---”

   “Thank you, Captain, it’s---”

   “I don’t know how you can bear to look at me.”

   My eyelid tightened and it stings as my withered tear duct released a salty droplet. I shudder for a moment as it tumbled down my cheek. 

My tangled mind screamed out loud inside my head. 

   “Remember to keep that smile,” I whispered.

   “You’re going to be fine, sir.” 

The End