REALITY TASTES OF ASHES

 

Having survived a murder attempt by Major Laska while weak in his hospital bed, Major Richard Blaine passes out ... 

to awaken to what new peril?

REALITY TASTES OF ASHES

“The good thing about passing out was that I would no longer see the impossible.” 

- Major Richard Blaine

 

Like a reverse eclipse, consciousness oozed like a sluggard sun to grudgingly confer awareness in a manner of which Silas Mariner would have been proud.

No starting gun, no overture, no introductory speaker. I should have known right then that I was out of my depth. Without pause or preamble, silent as the orbits of planets, a piece of my mind came back to me.

I kept my eyes closed. Why ask for questions to which my answers would only get me committed.

The same nurse spoke … but wearily, and I deduced it was towards the end of her shift.

“Did you arrest Major Laska, General?”

The gruff voice of General Omar Bradley sighed, “On what charge, Nurse Reynolds?”

“What charge?” snapped Sgt. Savalas from beside my bed. “He tried to kill Rick, ah, Major Blaine in his sleep.”

“Nurse Reynolds said there was no name badge nor rank insignia to the soldier she saw.”

“But the dagger I gave that military policeman ….””

Bradley grunted, “Military Police state they have no record of a Lt. Dunwich serving on this base.”

Sgt. Savalas growled, “That skunk ….”

Bradley interrupted him. “Major Laska you mean, sergeant.”

I sensed a body lean over my body and caught a whiff of expensive perfume. “I am sure he will be caught, Theo.”

Theo, was it? I cracked one eyelid to get a peek. Merde. Nurse Reynolds looked amazingly like Heddy Lamar for whom Sgt. Savalas had a fierce crush.

“You’re right, Rachel.”

Rachel? Maybe Laska trying to kill me was not all bad? As so often in my checkered, bruised life, I was wrong.

“No, sergeant, she is not. Major Laska, citing a family medical emergency, left by air back to Washington, D.C.”

“Why that, dirty ….”

Great Father of us all, grant me the strength to keep Theo from getting those stripes torn off. I reached deep within myself and managed to weakly tap on his thick fingers grasping my bed railing.

“He’ll … get his … Theo.”

“You’re awake!”

General Bradley husked, “Son, I’ve seen corpses look livelier.”

“General!” chided Nurse Reynolds.

I caught her stunning emerald eyes seeming to glow in her translucent fair skin with my own stinging ones. “Laska ….”

The general looked to be about to chide me for leaving off the man’s rank but pulled back.

“ … is amoral … cunning … tenacious … connected.  He … will get … all for which … he plots. Sad … for it will ….”

Breath failed me, but the nurse patted the back of my bloody, bruised left hand. “Not be enough. Yes, I have known such men. He will forever be frustrated. Every triumph will turn to ashes. No victory can mend a broken mind.”

The curtain over my mind rose a bit. “That … folder I stole … from Rommel’s desk … did ….”

Bradley smiled sadly. “Yes, son, we got it. How the h ….”

He flicked dark eyes to the nurse and changed gears verbally “… heck did you get that Waffenrock (military coat) and that folder strapped across your back, much less swim half the English Channel?”

I must have looked my puzzlement, for Theo, voice thick with unshed tears, smiled of salt, “A patrol boat found you paddling weakly like some battered robot, refusing to give up.”

“I feel … the battered part.”

Some imp blew out the candle of my mind.

Awakening the second time bore as much resemblance to the first time as kissing a woman does to marrying her, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of it. Although the one experience precedes the other, it in no way prepares you for it.

The air was black, cold as if someone were standing between me and a campfire. The blackbirds of my thoughts flew in haphazard fashion back to their roosts to nudge me awake.

Someone sat on my bed, bending the mattress only slightly.

If it was Laska, I was a dead man. I had no strength to fight.

“Strewth, mate. I’ve returned steaks to the chef as overcooked that looked better than you.”

“Sweet … talker.”

Something that felt like rich heavy wool was pressed into my trembling hands. There was a soft fur collar to it. Rommel’s Waffenrock. I smiled weakly. I somehow wanted it back badly and was glad to get it.

“Stone the crows, mate. I’ve stolen diamonds that were easier to lift than that long coat, but that pathetic smile made it all worthwhile.”

Sentient murmured within my mind,

‘MI6 operative, James Cloverfield. He seems to have taken an odd liking to you ever since writing his report on you.’

“Thanks … Cloverfield.”

“What? Oh, that bloody still, small voice, is it? Well, save that labored breath. I’ve a bit of odds and sods to tell you and precious little time to do it.”

“Not … going … anywhere.”

“If Rear Admiral Ramsey has his way, you will … along with the rest of your ‘Spartan 3oo.’ Strewth, mate, you cannot tell a man like that ‘Bollocks!’ and get away unscathed.”

“Didn’t.”

“In his mind you did, and that is all that matters to a man with influence and clout like his.”

I smiled coldly. “They don’t … make them … like him … anymore … but just to be … on the safe side … he tasks me … I’ll castrate him.”

Cloverfield shook my shoulder hard. “You can’t be talking like that in front of a MI6 agent!”

“Report me … word for word … He’ll be laughed … out of Whitehall … Never live … it … down.”

Cloverfield snorted, “No, chum, I do not think he would. So, for the best of all involved, I’ll stay mum.”

My chin sagged to my chest. “I miss … the familiar … corruption … of New Orleans … the street people … I knew.”

“The honest … thievery … of straightforward … scoundrels.”

“Are you fading on me, old boy?”

“Yes.”

He slapped my left cheek. Hard. “Wakey, wakey. I haven’t told you about your invalid president siccing the F.B.I on your lovely Helen Mayfair yet.”

My head snapped up. “What?”

“Thought that would do it. Yes. Blimey, seems like Rommel got word that miraculously you survived the fall from his lovely chateau window and made it to the coast somehow.”

“Have … no recollection … of it.”

“No wonder, mate. You were beaten near to death.”

I saw him dimly in the darkness pin something to my pillow. “It was reported that as you dived into the channel you cried, ‘il ne faut jurer de rien!”

“Never say never?”

“Yes. It’s gotten to be pretty much of a rallying cry in  the French Resistance … especially when it was reported you actually made it to England.”

“I would have … drowned but … for the patrol … boat.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But De Gaulle needs all the heroes he can get. So, that medal I just pinned on your pillow is the French Croix de Guerre with palm.”

“I’m … no hero.’

“So says every hero.”

He bent and pinned a huge medal on the other side of my pillow. “Now this little beauty is what got old Roosevelt to sic the F.B.I. on Helen Mayfair.”

“Why?”

“Rommel figured you’d drown in the Channel. Seems you made quite the impression on him. It bothered him that your lady would never know you died a hero.’

‘I’m no ….”

“I know. Let me finish, will you? Through a diplomatic courier to Switzerland and then to New Orleans, he sent a handwritten note praising you, along with his own Iron Cross, and the drawing you made of her in his presence.”

I saw him shake his head in the darkness. “Gods, the two of you chatting and drawing.”

“After the beating.”

“Bloody hell.”

“My thoughts … exactly.”

“Any way, it’s said Miss Mayfair didn’t leave her bedroom for a week. And when she did, the F.B.I. was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.”

“Merde.”

“You want to know what her first words were to them?”

I smiled wearily. “Oh, excellent. Somebody… for me to … kill.”

“Bloody hell! How did you know?

“I know … my Helen.”

There was a rustle of a starched skirt, and Nurse Reynolds rushed in. Her face beaming of translucence reminded me of Helen’s. It brought to mind something I had read by Pablo Neruda in the orphanage library where Helen and I had worked alone together for that wonderful, deadly year.

“As if you were on fire from within.

The moon lives in the lining of your skin.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Just leaving actually,” laughed Cloverfield.

“Then, leave by the window yonder. General Eisenhower and his two bodyguards are on the way to this room. Major Blaine is in enough trouble as it is without unauthorized visitors.”

Cloverfield slapped his forehead with an open palm. “Bother! That’s the other thing I meant to tell you, Blaine: General Eisenhower is on his way here to kill you.”