The Room on the Second Floor by T A Williams Page B

tried a few nefarious practices of his own, but she gently swatted him away. ‘Nobody would ever have thought of the manor being a place like that. It’s far too posh.’
    She looked down the bath at him in her turn. In the moonlight he looked ruggedly handsome, his muscular torso glistening and wet. Judging that the time was right for a little more intimacy, she asked him the question she had been delaying for weeks.
    ‘Those two scars on your shoulder. Are they what I think they are?’ His eyes flashed, but then the smile returned to his face.
    ‘If you are thinking that I was attacked by a beaver, you’d be right.’ He smiled at her, raised a foot from the water, and rested it gently on her shoulder, taking care not to add soapy water to the wine in her glass.
    ‘They’re bullet wounds, aren’t they, Duggie?’ She kept her voice low.
    He didn’t answer immediately. On the few occasions before, when the subject of his years in the Marines had come up, he had always shied away from conversation. She sipped her wine and held her breath, wondering what he would say.
    ‘Yes.’ This was followed by a long pause. So long that she was on the point of changing the subject when he started speaking. His voice was little more than a whisper, his eyes far away in the reed beds. ‘Iraq. I can’t tell you the name of the place, but it wouldn’t mean anything to you. It wouldn’t mean anything to most people, except me and the boys.’
    ‘The boys?’
    He took a deep breath. ‘There were four of us. It should have been a routine operation. Insofar as our ops ever were what you could call routine. But it all went badly wrong.’ He reached for the bottle in the bucket beside the bath and refilled his glass. He waved it in her direction, but she shook her head and waited for him to continue.
    ‘They must have known we were coming. One minute it was quiet as the grave, the next minute all hell broke loose.’ He took a big mouthful. She could see what this was costing him, and she found herself wondering if she should stop him. But he carried on. ‘The two guys on my left were killed outright. A heavy machine gun opened up at close range and cut them to pieces.’ Now she could see his eyes glistening in the light of the moon.
    ‘Duggie, you don’t need to tell me all about it. I was just asking.’ She gripped his leg with her free hand and kissed it.
    ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s time I talked about it.’ His eyes focused on her face. She read the emotion in them. ‘I can see it again now, just like it happened. It was a full moon that night too. Tom and Mikey. Both ripped apart in front of my eyes. That’s what HMGs do. They just tear great chunks out of you. They’ll go through brick walls. I was lucky, the bullets that hit me were small arms fire. Small bullets, nice clean entry and exit wounds. I was lucky.’ His fingers reached across his chest and ran lightly over the wounds. ‘Anyway, Monty and I managed to take the machine gun out and get away. We were almost out of range when Monty was hit in the neck. I carried him as far as I could.’ His voice caught, but he rallied. ‘It must have been his carotid artery. He bled to death all down my back. When I put him down, he was already dead.’
    She didn’t know what to say. But she knew what she had to do. She pulled herself up onto her knees and reached for him. His arms opened and he crushed her to his chest.
    They stayed like that for a long time. Finally she had to move.
    ‘I’m sorry, Duggie, but I’ve got cramp in my leg. I’ve got to move.’ Immediately she felt him return from wherever his thoughts had been.
    ‘Sorry, sweetheart, you should have said.’ She climbed gingerly out of the bath and started rubbing her thigh.
    ‘Here, I’ll do that for you.’ He followed her out of the bath and knelt down beside her. She steadied herself against his head as he massaged the pain away.
    ‘That’s great, Duggie. I feel better now.