The Colours of Love by Rita Bradshaw Page A

like eating.
    He would give the world for Esther to be here right now. Just to be able to talk to her, to hold her, to confess what he was feeling inside. She wouldn’t judge him, he knew that. If he told her that he had enjoyed killing another human being, that he had felt such a surge of fierce, primitive joy when he had turned a plane into a fireball – knowing that death was coming in burning agony for those inside – she wouldn’t understand, but she wouldn’t condemn him, either. Not his Esther.
    With his elbows on his knees, he put his head in his hands and pressed his little fingers against his eyeballs. Had he sold his soul to the Devil? Was that it? But then, whatever it took, Hitler and his Nazis had to be stopped, even if it meant legalized murder. Look at the slaughter of those poor blighters in the Warsaw ghetto just days ago. German SS troops had mounted a major operation to ‘clear’ its Jewish ghetto, the newspapers had reported, killing more than 50,000 men, women and children with grenades and flame-throwers; and the ones who’d survived had either been executed or penned like animals and sent to the concentration camps. It was unbelievable that such barbarity was happening in a civilized world; but it was, and it would continue to be so, unless Hitler and Himmler and the rest of the madmen were killed. And if, in so doing, he and others like him became brutalized to some extent, maybe that was the price that had to be paid?
    He raised his head, staring at Salty’s bunk. He didn’t know what was right and what was wrong any more.
    When the door to the hut opened, it wasn’t one of the friends he’d flown with that morning, but the station medical officer who stood there. Like most of his breed, the SMO kept a professional mask in place most of the time and rarely let his feelings show, but he had been a good friend of Salty’s since before the war. Quietly he said, ‘They told me you were in here. Come and get something to eat, man.’
    ‘Not hungry.’
    ‘Nevertheless, come and get something down you. That’s an order.’
    Monty stared at him. ‘Do you ever wonder if this war is a sick nightmare from which you’ll wake up?’
    The SMO said nothing for a moment, then slowly walked to Salty’s bunk and sat down, reaching out and touching the photograph of Salty’s wife and child. Softly he said, ‘She’s a good woman, and a good wife. Salty thought the world of her. And Amelia, their kid, looks just like Maria. She’s half-Italian, Maria. Did you know that?’
    Monty shook his head.
    ‘No, well, Salty didn’t broadcast the fact, what with the war and all. Maria was born in England, and she’s as English as you and I, but her parents’ little restaurant’s been daubed with paint and some of the local brats posted dog-dung through their letterbox. Maria’s father – he’s a Birmingham man – went mental when he caught one of ’em at it. He fought in the First World War, and to have dog-mess in his hall simply because he fell in love with an Italian woman umpteen years ago was beyond the pale. So he pushed the kid’s nose in it. That’s all; didn’t clip him round the ear or knock him about, just sent him away with a dirty face. And the kid’s father torched their place the next night, with them in it.’ The SMO looked at him. ‘So if you’re asking about nightmares, I think plenty of us have them. The world’s gone mad, that’s for sure, and it’s sending good people crazy with it. Neighbour turning against neighbour, and doing things they’d never have dreamed of before. But I know one thing, and so do you, and so did Salty. The only way to stamp out the madness is to win this war. Whatever it takes.’
    ‘I enjoyed –
really
enjoyed – destroying Salty’s killer.’
    ‘Your friend was killed in front of you, and you settled the score, okay? You’re not a perfect human being, Monty, and you never will be. Learn to live with it. Personally’ – the SMO stood