FIC: Roses of Picardy [9/?]
Jul. 15th, 2012 03:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
splixTitle: Roses of Picardy
Author: Alex
Fandom: War Horse
Rating: Varies, G to NC-17
Pairing: Jamie Stewart/Jim Nicholls
Disclaimer: No money made, no harm intended. Michael Morpurgo owns War Horse and its characters.
Summary: Captured in battle, Major Jamie Stewart faces an uncertain fate.
Warnings: Violence, explicit sexual content.
Notes: Canon divergent [see pairing]
Additional note: Please see the beautiful artwork that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sithdragn did for my story here and do leave a comment or kudos if you like it - artists love feedback too!
Can also be read on AO3
Note: This story will be on a brief [I hope no more than two-week] hiatus as I will be traveling away from home, but I promise more just as soon as I can and, I hope, an extra-long and toothsome chapter to make up for the absence. Thank you. :)
*
In the grey summer garden I shall find you
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:
And I shall know the sense of life re-born
From dreams into the mystery of morn
Where gloom and brightness meet.
---Siegfried Sassoon, Idyll
*
At times he floated, winking in and out of consciousness like a firefly’s tiny light in an indigo gloaming wood. The sensations that filtered through the haze were muted; noises were the gentlest blur of sound, the harsh daylight glare was diffused, and the pain was bearable. And then he surfaced, and the pain crashed into him and then crushed him, heavy, liquid, suffocating him, and he thrashed against it, wanting to claw the agony out of his body. He fought against the arms that pinned him down, the enemy voices that shouted at him. He was back in the trench, in the mud and slime and cold, and he cried out against the swords impaling his flesh.
--- Hold him.
---Delirious.
--- Be still! You’ll re-open the wound!
--- You mustn’t touch the dressing.
--- Morphia. Secure his arms.
He breathed in quick, short gasps, struggling against the strong arms that held him down. The pain swelled, monstrous, blotting out his voice and his breath and his feeble writhing, and drove him into the darkness once more.
*
Slowly, surfacing through the pain, he opened his eyes in the darkness to stifling heat and dampness and a ghostly chorus of groaning and weeping. The earth moved round his bed, dipping and rolling, and he heard a deep, steady thrum beneath the crying voices. He wet parched lips and tried to speak, but only a rusty croak emerged, low and all but inaudible. Frightened, he fell silent, listening to the wailing and moaning around him. He could see nothing, nothing at all, and wondered if he was blind. When he tried to bring his hands to his face to rub at his eyes, he found he could not move them.
Terror clutched at his heart. “Where am I?” he asked, but the question was no more than a whisper, a bit of milkweed carried off by the wind. Again he attempted to lift his hands and failed. They were restrained, tied on each side of his body. He yanked them up sharply, and the pain blossomed blood-red inside him and hooked at his flesh and tore. He keened in a soft voice; he was a prisoner again, and the groans and weeping all round him were of his men, his cavalry detachment, his fellow prisoners, and they would all die, and he would watch.
No. Jim had come, and Jim had freed him, and been shot, but they’d escaped. But then why was he still bound? Why was it so dark and so very hot, and where did the cries come from?
“Jim?”
Where was Jim? Why had he left?
“Let me out,” he begged, but softly, so the others wouldn’t hear and think him cowardly. “Let me out.”
The floor beneath him lurched, and he felt sick. He tried to sit up, to see even the faintest light in the darkness, but the pain hammered a silver spike into his belly, and he let out a gasping cry and plunged back into insensibility.
*
“Colonel Stewart?”
He heard the voice, but failed to connect it with himself. He drifted painlessly, comfortable and cool. The quiet was blissful, and there was a smell like strong soap, not unpleasant.
“Colonel Stewart, can you hear me?” A soft hand touched his shoulder. “You’re at St. Thomas hospital in Kent, Colonel. We’ve sent word to your parents. They telegraphed that they would arrive tomorrow.”
England? How had that happened? He opened his eyes and saw a blue and white blur.
“Quiet and rest is what’s needed now.”
Jim! If Jamie was in England, so too must Jim be. He spoke Jim’s name, but it spilled from his mouth in a guttural rasp so unlike his natural speaking voice it frightened him into silence. What had they done to him?
“It’s only the morphia that makes you a bit slow, Colonel. No need to be afraid.” The hand rested on his brow, warm and dry. “Sleep now.”
He tried again. Tell Jim, he wanted to say, but his lips and tongue refused to obey his brain.
“It’s to help with the pain, Colonel. We’ll wean you away from it soon enough. Not to worry.”
Jamie was tired, too tired to acknowledge the voice, kind and reassuring as it seemed. He felt a throbbing in his belly, but it hardly mattered; he was comfortable. If only he could tell the voice to speak to Jim. He was in England. He was home.
“Now, now,” the voice said, gentle, but firm, like the heather-burr of his childhood nanny. “Time to sleep. Rest and heal.”
Rest and heal. Even those words were soothing. He let them carry him along, down a velvety well of blackness into warmth and comfort, and at last he drifted upon the incoming tide of slumber.
*
He carried Jim through the green field of corn that grew high overhead. Jim was bleeding, not only from his leg but from his chest and his mouth as well. As Jamie carried him (but not over his shoulders; instead cradling him in his arms, as he might a small child) the blood bubbled from his lips and pooled on his uniform and poured itself onto the ground, soaking it, turning the earth to a horrifying red mud that sucked at Jamie’s boots, clinging and slippery, threatening to drag him down. Overhead an aeroplane circled relentlessly, searching for them, and the dark sky began to fade as the sun crept over the horizon. The aeroplane pilot would see movement in the corn and the bright blood in the field of green, and gun them down where they stood. Jim, in his arms, stirred and cried out in pain and misery, and Jamie was rooted to the spot, afraid to take another step, but if he stopped, Jim would die. Above him, the aeroplane droned closer and closer, roaring in his ears.
“Jamie!”
He opened his eyes to see his parents standing over him. They were dressed in summer travelling clothes, wearing identical expressions of anxiety, and for the first time, he noticed how worn and taut they appeared, far older than he remembered.
“A bad dream, I expect,” Margaret said quietly.
Jamie blinked, utterly confused. “Mummy,” he whispered.
“Oh, darling. Darling.” Margaret leant down and embraced him, and automatically, Jamie’s arms wound round her neck. He inhaled her flowery scent and rested his face against her shoulder. She grasped him tightly and held on. “My sweet boy.” Her voice was choked with weeping.
With a tremulous hand, Jamie reached out toward his father, and felt his hand gripped gently. With his free hand, Charles stroked Jamie’s hair over and over. Jamie looked up and saw his father’s eyes fill with tears. Distantly amazed, for he hadn’t ever seen his father weep, nor had he this much affection lavished upon him since he was a very tiny child indeed, he met Charles’ gaze and tried to smile.
After a few moments, they drew away. Charles blew his nose vigorously and Margaret dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, dear, I’m in a state,” Margaret said. “How are you feeling, darling?”
“Better than before,” Jamie said, vaguely appalled at how weak his voice was. “I reckon they’ve got me drugged to the gills.”
“You need the medicine, Jamie,” his mother said. “You must heal.”
“Where am I?”
“St. Thomas hospital in Kent. The London hospitals are so crowded, I’m afraid this was the best they could do. Apparently the hospital ships brought record numbers last week.”
St. Thomas. He vaguely recalled someone telling him that before. “How long will I be here?”
“Just a few more weeks,” Charles boomed in an unnecessarily loud voice. Margaret wheeled on him, a finger to her lips. “Sorry,” he said, lowering his voice. “A few more weeks, lad, ‘til the doctors feel it’s safe to move you. You’re healing nicely, they say.”
“What happened?”
Margaret and Charles exchanged a glance. “Darling,” Margaret faltered, “don’t you remember?”
Jamie would have laughed had he the strength. He managed to lift himself to his elbows. “I got stabbed. I remember that. I mean what’s wrong with me?”
“Ah,” Charles said. “Well, a punctured tummy, obviously, and the bayonet hit your intestines. Seems they took some of them out and stitched them back together again. Marvelous stuff!”
Margaret looked faintly green. “Oh, don’t talk about it.”
“And then you got an infection, they tell us,” Charles said blithely, ignoring Margaret. “Had to wait that out a bit in France – they couldn’t move you. It was chancy for a while, but you pulled through all right, thank God.”
Jamie frowned. “How long…how long since it happened? Since I was stabbed?”
“Five weeks.”
Shocked, Jamie collapsed back onto the pillow and winced as a throbbing pain seared itself into his belly. “Five weeks?” He hadn’t marked the passage of time at all; he’d simply slipped in and out of a nightmare daze, surfacing and sinking back endlessly. He thought back to the attack. It had been July, early July. Now it would be nearly mid-August. “It’s still infected?”
“Clearing up nicely, they said.”
“Does Jim know?”
“Jim?” Margaret frowned. “Oh! Captain Nicholls. I’ve no idea, dear. Would you like me to write him?”
“Yes.” Jamie clutched at his mother’s arm. “No. Telephone. Mummy, telephone him. He’s at the War Office in London. Whitehall.”
“All right, darling.” Margaret stroked his hair. “If you want me to, I will.”
“Yes. Please. Straight away. Please.”
“I will, darling. I will. Don’t worry. Rest now.” She turned to Charles. “We’ve worn him out.”
Charles nodded. “We’ll leave you for tonight, lad. Get some sleep.”
Jamie wanted to protest – it seems he’d done nothing but sleep for the past month and then some – but a weight of fatigue pressed upon his chest, and he could scarcely muster the strength to nod. “Come back?” He wanted to remind them to call Jim, but he was afraid they’d be angry. They didn’t like him fraternizing with Jim. They thought he was common. They were wrong, but he hadn’t the resources to argue. For now, he craved their approbation.
“We will, lad.” Charles’ voice resonated warmly in Jamie’s ear. “By God, it’s good to have you home.”
Home. Not how he would have chosen to arrive, but no matter. “Good-bye.” He closed his eyes again. He felt another gentle touch, a caress against his cheek, and drifted.
For a moment he recalled his dream, but now he reassured himself. Jim is safe. He’s home. Safe.
It was enough to soothe him. He slept once more.
*
War had shaped him into a creature on perpetual alert, for the slightest noise might signal danger, and so when the soft murmuring beside his bed began, he registered it at once, but hadn’t the strength to respond. He lay silent, his battered body tense yet still half-asleep, waiting for the murmuring’s cessation and the possibility of violence to follow. The whispering went on and on, a repeating sort of chant in a gentle cadence, and by and by it calmed him and his body relaxed again. The bed beneath him was comfortable, the sheets smelled clean, and the wound ached, though not badly. Jamie concentrated on the quiet rhythm of the murmuring until he was able to distinguish one word from another.
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. Ave Maria, gratia plena….”
Gradually – although the realisation was slow, so slow, as if he were swimming upwards through miles and miles of warm water – Jamie recognised the voice of the speaker. Only then did he open his eyes.
Jim sat beside his bed, his head bowed, his hair golden in the waning daylight spilling through the window, his lips moving as he prayed over a string of rosary beads, his graceful fingers sliding along each bead as he finished one prayer of his litany and began another. Like Jamie’s parents, Jim looked tired and strained and distraught with worry. He, too, looked older than he had a year and a half ago. Jamie supposed they all did.
A year and a half, he thought. Dear God, it had been that long, and Jim’s letters had sustained him. Day after day of endless plodding and terrifying destruction, deceptive lulls and explosive terror, of shattered limbs and souls and grief and sorrow for the loss of comrades. The filth and disease of the trenches, the earsplitting screams of shelling, the thunder of explosions, the cries of the sick, the wounded, the dying. Bodies hanging on barbed wire like grim scarecrows, bodies torn apart from shells and bullets and flying scraps of metal, bodies mutilated beyond recognition, the new white crosses in green fields, funeral bells. Through all that Jamie had Jim, warm and alive and well, and the purest joy suffused his heart. Not everyone was as lucky as he. He watched Jim pray without impatience, content to drink in the sight of him, the sound of his soft voice. He had waited so long.
“Glória Patri et Fílio et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc et semper et in sæ´cula sæculórum.” Jim’s brow furrowed. “Amen.” Slowly, he turned his head. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “You’re –“ He pressed his lips together, and his face grew very white.
“Hello there.” Jamie slid a hand along the bed and held it out.
Jim set his rosary on Jamie’s bedside table, then took Jamie’s hand gingerly, as if it were made of fragile porcelain. “You’re awake.”
Jamie nodded.
“Dear God.” Tears sprang to Jim’s eyes. He rubbed the back of his free hand against his mouth in a gesture that was both carnal and childishly innocent, quickly glanced around the room lined with beds, and then lifted Jamie’s hand to his lips and kissed the palm. He lowered Jamie’s hand to the counterpane, but continued to hold it. “I –“ He lowered his head and covered his face. His shoulders shook with weeping.
Jamie saw a tear trickling from between two of Jim’s outspread fingers, and for some reason, the image tore into his heart. He bit his lip and swallowed against a lump in his throat. “Oh, Jim, now –“ Fumbling, he freed his hand from Jim’s and leant forward, wincing, to stroke his hair. “Please…please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry.” Jim dragged a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” He smiled tremulously at Jamie. “It’s just that I’ve not set eyes on you for so long, and I hadn’t heard from you for two months – I was frantic with worry. And now you’re here, but so pale and thin – oh, Jamie.” Jim clasped Jamie’s hand again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to make a scene. I’m so glad to see you, but my head and my heart are giving me what-for.” He laughed in spite of the tears that still pooled in his eyes and trembled on his eyelashes, darkening them into wet feathery fringes. His brilliant smile brightened the rapidly dimming room.
“Did my mother…telephone you?”
“Yes. You look positively parched. Do you want some water?”
Jamie nodded. A drink of water would be ambrosial. “Please.”
There was a water pitcher and glass on Jamie’s table. Jim poured a half glass. “Can you sit up? Never mind, just tilt your head back a bit.” He tipped the water into Jamie’s mouth. “Slowly, now. Slowly. Don’t make yourself sick.” Jim took the glass away and wiped at Jamie’s mouth with a corner of the sheet. “Better?”
“Yes.”
Jim’s eyes were still very bright. “Good.” He took Jamie’s hand again. “This is the best I can do,” he whispered. “I want to kiss you, but I daren’t.”
“I wish you could.”
“So do I.” Jim glanced around again. “No – too risky. I’ll save it. I’m not hurting you, am I? Are you comfortable?”
Jamie smiled tiredly. “You couldn’t hurt me.”
“Stop – you’ll make me cry again.” Jim’s smile faltered a little. “I was so relieved to get that telephone call. It was dashed kind of her to make it. You see, there was some sort of mix-up with the casualty list. Have your parents told you?”
“Told me what? What happened?”
“It seems that there was some sort of clerical error in France. You were on the list as missing, believed killed.” Jim’s breath shuddered out of him. “I exerted every bit of influence I had to find you, but it was impossible. Thank God you were cared for, but it was as if you’d vanished into thin air. I checked the lists every day, and it wasn’t until you were on the hospital ship roster that I discovered you’d been wounded. Then there was a gap when the hospital where you were meant to be transferred was over-full. Someone from the hospital here must have notified your parents. I’m ashamed of the inefficiency of our record-keeping, especially as I’m supposed to be in charge of some of it.”
“It isn’t your fault.” Jamie turned his hand upward and squeezed Jim’s. “Christ. I’m so blasted weak. Can scarcely move my hand.”
“You’ve had a rough go of things, but you’ll be all right. I know you will. We’ve got to feed you up and get you walking again –“ Jim shook his head. “You’ll be fine. You’re home now.”
“It’s so good to see you. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Jim smiled. “And you. You can’t imagine – well, perhaps you can. I’m so happy.” He laughed again. “Funny old thing, you being in Kent. I’m staying at my parents’ house for a few days. I’ve totted up a bit of leave myself, so I’ve got ‘til Sunday to spend with you, for as long as the nurses let me. The head nurse is a bit of a dragon. I had to give a full accounting of myself before she’d let me see you.”
“How are you?”
“Delirious with joy.” Jim’s smile brightened. “Honestly. I’m ripping. I want to pick you up and carry you out of here, but I know I can’t, more’s the pity.”
“Captain Nicholls.”
Jamie looked up to see a young nurse in a blue and white uniform. She nodded at him and addressed Jim. “I’m afraid I must ask you to leave now. We must have quiet on the ward so the men can rest.”
“Just a few more moments,” Jamie pleaded.
The nurse glanced down at their linked hands and shrugged. “Five minutes, and I must enforce that.” She nodded again and turned on her heel.
Jim bit his lip as her heels tapped out an almost military cadence as she walked away. “Told you – a dragon.”
“That’s the head nurse? Bit young to be in charge of it all.”
“Young, but formidable. Well, mustn’t disobey orders.” Jim placed his other hand on Jamie’s and stroked gently. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Will you tell me what’s happening? With the war, I mean. I’m having trouble believing I’ve been unconscious for more than a month. At least – everything I can remember is terribly hazy.”
“I’m sure it helped with the pain, though. Now they’ve got to wean you off the stuff, and that’s another matter.”
“I’m ready to be free of it tomorrow.”
“I doubt they’d do that to you.” Jim rubbed Jamie’s hand gently. “Shall I bring some newspapers tomorrow? You’d catch up more quickly that way. And here –“ He reached down and retrieved a small bundle of letters from the shelf below his bedside table. “These caught up with you at last. I see there are three of mine here. I’m rather ashamed of them now – they get more piteous and pleading with each successive letter. I hadn’t realised you’d been wounded. Perhaps I should just take them with me.”
“Don’t you dare,” Jamie said. “I shall read them at breakfast tomorrow morning.” He smiled tiredly at Jim. “Thank you for coming to see me. I’m sorry this is such a – an odd way to see you at last.”
“When I think of what might have happened, I’m more than happy to see you like this. You’re healing, that’s the main thing.” Jim’s face grew still. “I shall get on my knees tonight and thank God that you’ve come back to me.”
“Do you think God approves?”
Two spots of pink coloured Jim’s cheeks. He looked down at their joined hands. “He must,” he said softly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” He rose to his feet and collected his rosary, slipping it into his tunic pocket. “I’ll come tomorrow morning.”
“Do, please.”
“I will.” Jim gently folded Jamie’s arm onto his chest and leant close to his ear. “I do love you so.” He straightened, gazing down at Jamie with a tender smile, and winked.
Jamie laughed, heedless of the pain in his belly. Oh, God, it was heaven to see him again.
“That’s my boy,” Jim whispered. He collected his cap, saluted briefly, and turned to go. At the door he paused, looked over his shoulder, and beamed, then disappeared.
Jamie fought the urge to call Jim back. Steady on, you’ll see him tomorrow. Slowly, he reached for the bundle of letters on the bedside table and shuffled through them, setting Jim’s on the bed. He checked the postmarks and opened the oldest one first, glancing up when another nurse, this one plump, with very red lips, touched his shoulder. “Yes?”
“Time for your medicine, Colonel.”
Jamie frowned at the spoon and brown bottle in her hand. “Morphine?”
“Yes, indeed, sir. It’s for the pain.”
“I don’t want any more, nurse….”
“Harding, sir.”
“Nurse Harding. It makes me unbearably foggy. I’ve lost track of the last month and a half because of it. I’m afraid I’m turning into some sort of lotus-eater.”
The nurse raised a shapely blonde brow. “You may change your mind tonight.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Jamie said with a firm nod. “Meanwhile, may I ask a favour? Would you find a doctor to speak to me about my condition as soon as it can be managed?”
“Heavens,” the nurse said. “You’re full of beans, aren’t you? Having your friend visit must have done no end of good.”
“Oh, I think it did.” Jamie smiled. He did feel clearer; prior to Jim’s visit, his conscious thinking had felt as if he were trying to wade through a sea of eye-high fluffy cotton-wool.
“Well, I’m not on until tomorrow noon, but I’ll leave word with Nurse Cahill.” Nurse Harding pocketed her bottle and spoon. “Was that gentleman in your company, then, Colonel?”
“My first regiment,” Jamie said. “A cavalry regiment. He was invalided home.”
“Well, it’s wonderful to see he hasn’t forgot about you.” The nurse gently took the letters from his hands. “You mustn’t read now, you’ll strain your eyes. Sleep now, if you can, and if the pain gets too bad, don’t feel shy about calling out. I must say, it does give me a lift when I see fellows visiting their comrades. Lovely of them.”
“It is,” Jamie agreed fervently. “Indeed it is.”
*
August faded slowly into September, and Jamie was still trapped in the hospital, though his condition had improved immensely, according to the physicians and nurses. He walked with the aid of a cane, and he had weaned himself somewhat ruthlessly away from the morphine, relying on aspirin for the pain. It wasn’t a patch on morphine for making the pain disappear, or at least making him indifferent to it, but it was better than nothing at all.
The visits from Jamie’s parents had dwindled. Cynically, but accurately, Jamie observed that as long as his imminent death wasn’t on the horizon, their attention wavered, but affectionate neglect was their long-established pattern and it never occurred to Jamie to question it as he’d never known anything else. His father had returned to Scotland for the shooting, and his mother remained in London, where he would go when his convalescence at St. Thomas’ ended. She’d come up a few times, bringing books and chocolates that were too rich for him to eat without getting sick. He was grateful for the books, and passed the chocolates on to the other fellows in the ward, who devoured them happily.
And on the week-ends, he had Jim, who had come from London faithfully, spending every possible moment with Jamie, and brushing aside Jamie’s protests that Jim was likely giving up his free time to spend with an invalid. Jim brought books and magazines and newspapers, and together they read about Germany and Austria-Hungary’s dwindling might, the growing, if hard-gained, Allied victories in France and the Balkan theatre. Jim wheeled Jamie about in a chair when the weather was fine, and when they were out of anyone’s sight, allowed him to walk more than the nurses would have approved. They found a secluded bench in a green park near the hospital, and made it their own. They would play a few hands of cards, or Jim would read poetry to Jamie, or they would simply sit quietly, soaking up the last of the summer’s warmth. Jamie listened now, his eyes fixed on Jim’s face as he read, his voice gently rising and falling with the rhythm of the verse.
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Jim closed the worn little book. “What do you make of it?”
“I suppose he means that when he’s feeling low and wretched and jealous of other chaps’ good fortune, he thinks about the one he loves best, and all at once things are quite sunny again.”
“Sensible fellow, that Will.” Jim smiled and stretched. “I had better get you back, or they’ll send out a search party. You must be cold, too – I should have brought a lap rug or some such. You’ll catch cold in just pyjamas and a bathrobe.”
“I’m perfectly warm,” Jamie said, then regretfully peered at the waning sunlight hovering uncertainly through the leaves of the trees. “It does seem to be getting dark earlier and earlier.”
Jim heaved himself to his feet and tucked his book into his pocket. “Well, come on, then, Colonel, before the night falls and I get another tongue-lashing from the nurses for keeping you out past supper time. They’re going to bar me from visiting you if it happens again.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“You’re the model of gallantry.” Jim looked around, then bent and pressed a quick kiss to Jamie’s lips. “Good heavens, you’ve practically a full beard there. Why haven’t the nurses shaved you?”
“They’ve other things to worry about – a new bunch of men arrived day before yesterday. There hasn’t been time.” Jamie ruefully brushed a hand up his cheek, wincing at the stubble there. “I’d have asked for some hot water and a razor myself, but they’ve been so busy, I didn’t like to trouble them.”
“Chivalrous of you.” Jim began to push the wheelchair toward the hospital. “I think I can do something about it, if you like.”
“I’d be grateful.”
“Not at all, old chap.” Jim patted his shoulder. “We’ve got to keep you looking spruce.”
Jamie fell silent as Jim rolled the chair along the pavement. He’d no right to expect Jim to wait on him so patiently, but every moment spent with him felt like the most fragile and precious of gifts, and Jim was so merry, so full of buoyant spirit as he blithely brushed aside Jamie’s feeble protests. “I just want to be with you,” he’d said, and how could Jamie argue that when he wanted the same thing? After almost two years of loneliness and terror and violence, it was enough to simply have him nearby, to study his dear face, the colour of his eyes, the vivacity of his lavish smile, the grace of his lean body, the cleverness of his long hands as they sketched a tree or tidied Jamie’s blankets or turned the page of a book. Jamie was not, he knew, a man anyone in his right mind would call humble, but the miracle of Jim’s presence during these last warm days of summer made him feel very small and very humble indeed.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“I was just…I was thinking, a little while ago, about the reversal of our roles. That is – four years ago you were in a wheelchair, and I was pushing you.”
“How true. Thus are the mighty fallen.” Jim sounded amused. “You’re in my nefarious clutches now, fair sir.”
Jamie chuckled. “Four years. It seemed to pass so slowly.”
“It was nigh unbearable for me, I don’t mind telling you. But you’re home at last. I’m content.”
“And what now?” Jamie tried to put the question lightly, but it fell like a stone, weighted with anxiety.
“Ah.” Jim pushed him in silence for a moment. “There’s the rub, isn’t it?”
“Jim, can we stop for a bit?”
Obligingly, Jim stopped the chair beside a low stone wall and sat, peering earnestly at Jamie. “I’ve been thinking of that very thing, Jamie, but I haven’t got an answer and I didn’t like to bring it up when you’re still healing.”
“I won’t shatter because of a difficult question, old man. I’m not made of crystal.” Jamie quieted until two women walking a placid Labrador and a nervous, yapping Pekingese passed by and moved out of earshot. The mingled scent of their perfume lingered a moment then faded away. “Jim, you’re so good and honest and fine – but the war made for peculiar circumstances, didn’t it?”
Jim’s expression became troubled. “What are you telling me?”
Jamie shook his head, feeling bereft and helpless. He wished he were as eloquent as Jim, that words fell easily from his lips. “You’ve been so…marvellous, but now the war’s ending – if not this year, then almost certainly next year, and it’s only that I…I wasn’t certain about how you felt regarding all…this.”
Jim frowned thunderously, then his eyes widened. “Are you saying you think I’ve gone off you, or that I’m planning to?”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I know your parents must be eager for you to meet young ladies, to start a family.”
“You weren’t listening to that poem, I see.”
“I certainly was,” Jamie replied with a touch of indignation.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Jim said softly. “I know that. It’s never been easy for men like us, Jamie, and as I said, I haven’t answers. No, I do have one. I love you with all my heart, and I shall love you until the day I die. I know that the moment you told me that you loved me was the pinnacle of happiness for me, and that every day since, no matter how fraught with fear and distress, has been the better because of that knowledge. I have hopes, Jamie, but no expectations.”
It was an unnerving and amazing thing to hear. Jamie, who preferred certainty and preparedness above all things, felt a strange thrill of exultation and terror. Jim, who had waited for him, who had held his heart and opened his body to Jamie’s touch, was willing to leap the abyss. Tentatively, Jamie spoke. “I suppose, then, that we shall have to take our fences as we find them.”
Relief flooded Jim’s face. “Do you mean that?”
Jamie nodded. What a curious freedom. “It’s a bit nerve-wracking.”
“I know. But we’ve got to start somewhere.” Jim stood. “Come on, we’re really going to cop it.”
The nurses were too busy to chide Jim for bringing Jamie back late, and in fact happily accommodated Jim’s request for shaving things. “We’ve not had time lately,” one of the nurses confided, “what with all the new lads. It’s good of you, Captain.”
“Not at all.” Jim trimmed Jamie’s mustache with a tiny pair of scissors, then carefully sharpened the razor on a leather strop the nurse had given him. He wetted and lathered Jamie’s face, then tilted Jamie’s head back and shaved his throat with a sure, steady hand. “Something quite exciting about doing this to you in the midst of all these unsuspecting people.”
Jamie was glad for the shaving soap that obscured the flush rising to his face. “You’ve got a cheek, Captain.”
“Indeed, haven’t I just.” Jim grinned a bit wickedly, then wiped the blade and shaved Jamie’s cheeks and chin, tilting his face this way and that, humming absently as he worked. “There! Not bad, if I do say so myself. If this editing position doesn’t work out the way I hope, perhaps I can become a barber.”
Jamie laughed, wiped off the remnants of soap, and felt his newly sleek face. “Much better. Thanks, old man. Now I won’t scandalise Mother when she comes to visit.”
“Will she be taking you home at last?”
“I hope so,” Jamie said. “I’m deuced tired of this place, not that they haven’t been terribly kind. I’m sure they can use the spare bed, too.”
“It’ll be wonderful to have you back in London.” Jim’s eyes gleamed with sudden mischief, and he lowered his voice to an insinuating murmur. “I don’t suppose you know exactly when you’ll be able to –“
“There you are!”
Jamie stiffened at the familiar booming voice. He looked up at Jim for a moment, then closed his eyes briefly. “Bloody hell,” he whispered.
Jim’s brow furrowed, and he turned to look at the newcomer, a tall man with dark hair, blue eyes, and a roguish, handsome face. He wore the uniform of an army private with style and dash, as if it had been tailored for him. Jamie would have bet his earthly fortune that it had. The man smiled at Jamie, but the smile was perfunctory, failing to reach his eyes.
“Been looking everywhere for you. Ready to come home?”
Resignation filtered into Jamie’s heart and bled out into his voice. “Hello, Philip.”
*
Author: Alex
Fandom: War Horse
Rating: Varies, G to NC-17
Pairing: Jamie Stewart/Jim Nicholls
Disclaimer: No money made, no harm intended. Michael Morpurgo owns War Horse and its characters.
Summary: Captured in battle, Major Jamie Stewart faces an uncertain fate.
Warnings: Violence, explicit sexual content.
Notes: Canon divergent [see pairing]
Additional note: Please see the beautiful artwork that
sithdragn did for my story here and do leave a comment or kudos if you like it - artists love feedback too!Can also be read on AO3
Note: This story will be on a brief [I hope no more than two-week] hiatus as I will be traveling away from home, but I promise more just as soon as I can and, I hope, an extra-long and toothsome chapter to make up for the absence. Thank you. :)
*
In the grey summer garden I shall find you
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:
And I shall know the sense of life re-born
From dreams into the mystery of morn
Where gloom and brightness meet.
---Siegfried Sassoon, Idyll
*
At times he floated, winking in and out of consciousness like a firefly’s tiny light in an indigo gloaming wood. The sensations that filtered through the haze were muted; noises were the gentlest blur of sound, the harsh daylight glare was diffused, and the pain was bearable. And then he surfaced, and the pain crashed into him and then crushed him, heavy, liquid, suffocating him, and he thrashed against it, wanting to claw the agony out of his body. He fought against the arms that pinned him down, the enemy voices that shouted at him. He was back in the trench, in the mud and slime and cold, and he cried out against the swords impaling his flesh.
--- Hold him.
---Delirious.
--- Be still! You’ll re-open the wound!
--- You mustn’t touch the dressing.
--- Morphia. Secure his arms.
He breathed in quick, short gasps, struggling against the strong arms that held him down. The pain swelled, monstrous, blotting out his voice and his breath and his feeble writhing, and drove him into the darkness once more.
*
Slowly, surfacing through the pain, he opened his eyes in the darkness to stifling heat and dampness and a ghostly chorus of groaning and weeping. The earth moved round his bed, dipping and rolling, and he heard a deep, steady thrum beneath the crying voices. He wet parched lips and tried to speak, but only a rusty croak emerged, low and all but inaudible. Frightened, he fell silent, listening to the wailing and moaning around him. He could see nothing, nothing at all, and wondered if he was blind. When he tried to bring his hands to his face to rub at his eyes, he found he could not move them.
Terror clutched at his heart. “Where am I?” he asked, but the question was no more than a whisper, a bit of milkweed carried off by the wind. Again he attempted to lift his hands and failed. They were restrained, tied on each side of his body. He yanked them up sharply, and the pain blossomed blood-red inside him and hooked at his flesh and tore. He keened in a soft voice; he was a prisoner again, and the groans and weeping all round him were of his men, his cavalry detachment, his fellow prisoners, and they would all die, and he would watch.
No. Jim had come, and Jim had freed him, and been shot, but they’d escaped. But then why was he still bound? Why was it so dark and so very hot, and where did the cries come from?
“Jim?”
Where was Jim? Why had he left?
“Let me out,” he begged, but softly, so the others wouldn’t hear and think him cowardly. “Let me out.”
The floor beneath him lurched, and he felt sick. He tried to sit up, to see even the faintest light in the darkness, but the pain hammered a silver spike into his belly, and he let out a gasping cry and plunged back into insensibility.
*
“Colonel Stewart?”
He heard the voice, but failed to connect it with himself. He drifted painlessly, comfortable and cool. The quiet was blissful, and there was a smell like strong soap, not unpleasant.
“Colonel Stewart, can you hear me?” A soft hand touched his shoulder. “You’re at St. Thomas hospital in Kent, Colonel. We’ve sent word to your parents. They telegraphed that they would arrive tomorrow.”
England? How had that happened? He opened his eyes and saw a blue and white blur.
“Quiet and rest is what’s needed now.”
Jim! If Jamie was in England, so too must Jim be. He spoke Jim’s name, but it spilled from his mouth in a guttural rasp so unlike his natural speaking voice it frightened him into silence. What had they done to him?
“It’s only the morphia that makes you a bit slow, Colonel. No need to be afraid.” The hand rested on his brow, warm and dry. “Sleep now.”
He tried again. Tell Jim, he wanted to say, but his lips and tongue refused to obey his brain.
“It’s to help with the pain, Colonel. We’ll wean you away from it soon enough. Not to worry.”
Jamie was tired, too tired to acknowledge the voice, kind and reassuring as it seemed. He felt a throbbing in his belly, but it hardly mattered; he was comfortable. If only he could tell the voice to speak to Jim. He was in England. He was home.
“Now, now,” the voice said, gentle, but firm, like the heather-burr of his childhood nanny. “Time to sleep. Rest and heal.”
Rest and heal. Even those words were soothing. He let them carry him along, down a velvety well of blackness into warmth and comfort, and at last he drifted upon the incoming tide of slumber.
*
He carried Jim through the green field of corn that grew high overhead. Jim was bleeding, not only from his leg but from his chest and his mouth as well. As Jamie carried him (but not over his shoulders; instead cradling him in his arms, as he might a small child) the blood bubbled from his lips and pooled on his uniform and poured itself onto the ground, soaking it, turning the earth to a horrifying red mud that sucked at Jamie’s boots, clinging and slippery, threatening to drag him down. Overhead an aeroplane circled relentlessly, searching for them, and the dark sky began to fade as the sun crept over the horizon. The aeroplane pilot would see movement in the corn and the bright blood in the field of green, and gun them down where they stood. Jim, in his arms, stirred and cried out in pain and misery, and Jamie was rooted to the spot, afraid to take another step, but if he stopped, Jim would die. Above him, the aeroplane droned closer and closer, roaring in his ears.
“Jamie!”
He opened his eyes to see his parents standing over him. They were dressed in summer travelling clothes, wearing identical expressions of anxiety, and for the first time, he noticed how worn and taut they appeared, far older than he remembered.
“A bad dream, I expect,” Margaret said quietly.
Jamie blinked, utterly confused. “Mummy,” he whispered.
“Oh, darling. Darling.” Margaret leant down and embraced him, and automatically, Jamie’s arms wound round her neck. He inhaled her flowery scent and rested his face against her shoulder. She grasped him tightly and held on. “My sweet boy.” Her voice was choked with weeping.
With a tremulous hand, Jamie reached out toward his father, and felt his hand gripped gently. With his free hand, Charles stroked Jamie’s hair over and over. Jamie looked up and saw his father’s eyes fill with tears. Distantly amazed, for he hadn’t ever seen his father weep, nor had he this much affection lavished upon him since he was a very tiny child indeed, he met Charles’ gaze and tried to smile.
After a few moments, they drew away. Charles blew his nose vigorously and Margaret dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, dear, I’m in a state,” Margaret said. “How are you feeling, darling?”
“Better than before,” Jamie said, vaguely appalled at how weak his voice was. “I reckon they’ve got me drugged to the gills.”
“You need the medicine, Jamie,” his mother said. “You must heal.”
“Where am I?”
“St. Thomas hospital in Kent. The London hospitals are so crowded, I’m afraid this was the best they could do. Apparently the hospital ships brought record numbers last week.”
St. Thomas. He vaguely recalled someone telling him that before. “How long will I be here?”
“Just a few more weeks,” Charles boomed in an unnecessarily loud voice. Margaret wheeled on him, a finger to her lips. “Sorry,” he said, lowering his voice. “A few more weeks, lad, ‘til the doctors feel it’s safe to move you. You’re healing nicely, they say.”
“What happened?”
Margaret and Charles exchanged a glance. “Darling,” Margaret faltered, “don’t you remember?”
Jamie would have laughed had he the strength. He managed to lift himself to his elbows. “I got stabbed. I remember that. I mean what’s wrong with me?”
“Ah,” Charles said. “Well, a punctured tummy, obviously, and the bayonet hit your intestines. Seems they took some of them out and stitched them back together again. Marvelous stuff!”
Margaret looked faintly green. “Oh, don’t talk about it.”
“And then you got an infection, they tell us,” Charles said blithely, ignoring Margaret. “Had to wait that out a bit in France – they couldn’t move you. It was chancy for a while, but you pulled through all right, thank God.”
Jamie frowned. “How long…how long since it happened? Since I was stabbed?”
“Five weeks.”
Shocked, Jamie collapsed back onto the pillow and winced as a throbbing pain seared itself into his belly. “Five weeks?” He hadn’t marked the passage of time at all; he’d simply slipped in and out of a nightmare daze, surfacing and sinking back endlessly. He thought back to the attack. It had been July, early July. Now it would be nearly mid-August. “It’s still infected?”
“Clearing up nicely, they said.”
“Does Jim know?”
“Jim?” Margaret frowned. “Oh! Captain Nicholls. I’ve no idea, dear. Would you like me to write him?”
“Yes.” Jamie clutched at his mother’s arm. “No. Telephone. Mummy, telephone him. He’s at the War Office in London. Whitehall.”
“All right, darling.” Margaret stroked his hair. “If you want me to, I will.”
“Yes. Please. Straight away. Please.”
“I will, darling. I will. Don’t worry. Rest now.” She turned to Charles. “We’ve worn him out.”
Charles nodded. “We’ll leave you for tonight, lad. Get some sleep.”
Jamie wanted to protest – it seems he’d done nothing but sleep for the past month and then some – but a weight of fatigue pressed upon his chest, and he could scarcely muster the strength to nod. “Come back?” He wanted to remind them to call Jim, but he was afraid they’d be angry. They didn’t like him fraternizing with Jim. They thought he was common. They were wrong, but he hadn’t the resources to argue. For now, he craved their approbation.
“We will, lad.” Charles’ voice resonated warmly in Jamie’s ear. “By God, it’s good to have you home.”
Home. Not how he would have chosen to arrive, but no matter. “Good-bye.” He closed his eyes again. He felt another gentle touch, a caress against his cheek, and drifted.
For a moment he recalled his dream, but now he reassured himself. Jim is safe. He’s home. Safe.
It was enough to soothe him. He slept once more.
*
War had shaped him into a creature on perpetual alert, for the slightest noise might signal danger, and so when the soft murmuring beside his bed began, he registered it at once, but hadn’t the strength to respond. He lay silent, his battered body tense yet still half-asleep, waiting for the murmuring’s cessation and the possibility of violence to follow. The whispering went on and on, a repeating sort of chant in a gentle cadence, and by and by it calmed him and his body relaxed again. The bed beneath him was comfortable, the sheets smelled clean, and the wound ached, though not badly. Jamie concentrated on the quiet rhythm of the murmuring until he was able to distinguish one word from another.
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. Ave Maria, gratia plena….”
Gradually – although the realisation was slow, so slow, as if he were swimming upwards through miles and miles of warm water – Jamie recognised the voice of the speaker. Only then did he open his eyes.
Jim sat beside his bed, his head bowed, his hair golden in the waning daylight spilling through the window, his lips moving as he prayed over a string of rosary beads, his graceful fingers sliding along each bead as he finished one prayer of his litany and began another. Like Jamie’s parents, Jim looked tired and strained and distraught with worry. He, too, looked older than he had a year and a half ago. Jamie supposed they all did.
A year and a half, he thought. Dear God, it had been that long, and Jim’s letters had sustained him. Day after day of endless plodding and terrifying destruction, deceptive lulls and explosive terror, of shattered limbs and souls and grief and sorrow for the loss of comrades. The filth and disease of the trenches, the earsplitting screams of shelling, the thunder of explosions, the cries of the sick, the wounded, the dying. Bodies hanging on barbed wire like grim scarecrows, bodies torn apart from shells and bullets and flying scraps of metal, bodies mutilated beyond recognition, the new white crosses in green fields, funeral bells. Through all that Jamie had Jim, warm and alive and well, and the purest joy suffused his heart. Not everyone was as lucky as he. He watched Jim pray without impatience, content to drink in the sight of him, the sound of his soft voice. He had waited so long.
“Glória Patri et Fílio et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc et semper et in sæ´cula sæculórum.” Jim’s brow furrowed. “Amen.” Slowly, he turned his head. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “You’re –“ He pressed his lips together, and his face grew very white.
“Hello there.” Jamie slid a hand along the bed and held it out.
Jim set his rosary on Jamie’s bedside table, then took Jamie’s hand gingerly, as if it were made of fragile porcelain. “You’re awake.”
Jamie nodded.
“Dear God.” Tears sprang to Jim’s eyes. He rubbed the back of his free hand against his mouth in a gesture that was both carnal and childishly innocent, quickly glanced around the room lined with beds, and then lifted Jamie’s hand to his lips and kissed the palm. He lowered Jamie’s hand to the counterpane, but continued to hold it. “I –“ He lowered his head and covered his face. His shoulders shook with weeping.
Jamie saw a tear trickling from between two of Jim’s outspread fingers, and for some reason, the image tore into his heart. He bit his lip and swallowed against a lump in his throat. “Oh, Jim, now –“ Fumbling, he freed his hand from Jim’s and leant forward, wincing, to stroke his hair. “Please…please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry.” Jim dragged a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” He smiled tremulously at Jamie. “It’s just that I’ve not set eyes on you for so long, and I hadn’t heard from you for two months – I was frantic with worry. And now you’re here, but so pale and thin – oh, Jamie.” Jim clasped Jamie’s hand again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to make a scene. I’m so glad to see you, but my head and my heart are giving me what-for.” He laughed in spite of the tears that still pooled in his eyes and trembled on his eyelashes, darkening them into wet feathery fringes. His brilliant smile brightened the rapidly dimming room.
“Did my mother…telephone you?”
“Yes. You look positively parched. Do you want some water?”
Jamie nodded. A drink of water would be ambrosial. “Please.”
There was a water pitcher and glass on Jamie’s table. Jim poured a half glass. “Can you sit up? Never mind, just tilt your head back a bit.” He tipped the water into Jamie’s mouth. “Slowly, now. Slowly. Don’t make yourself sick.” Jim took the glass away and wiped at Jamie’s mouth with a corner of the sheet. “Better?”
“Yes.”
Jim’s eyes were still very bright. “Good.” He took Jamie’s hand again. “This is the best I can do,” he whispered. “I want to kiss you, but I daren’t.”
“I wish you could.”
“So do I.” Jim glanced around again. “No – too risky. I’ll save it. I’m not hurting you, am I? Are you comfortable?”
Jamie smiled tiredly. “You couldn’t hurt me.”
“Stop – you’ll make me cry again.” Jim’s smile faltered a little. “I was so relieved to get that telephone call. It was dashed kind of her to make it. You see, there was some sort of mix-up with the casualty list. Have your parents told you?”
“Told me what? What happened?”
“It seems that there was some sort of clerical error in France. You were on the list as missing, believed killed.” Jim’s breath shuddered out of him. “I exerted every bit of influence I had to find you, but it was impossible. Thank God you were cared for, but it was as if you’d vanished into thin air. I checked the lists every day, and it wasn’t until you were on the hospital ship roster that I discovered you’d been wounded. Then there was a gap when the hospital where you were meant to be transferred was over-full. Someone from the hospital here must have notified your parents. I’m ashamed of the inefficiency of our record-keeping, especially as I’m supposed to be in charge of some of it.”
“It isn’t your fault.” Jamie turned his hand upward and squeezed Jim’s. “Christ. I’m so blasted weak. Can scarcely move my hand.”
“You’ve had a rough go of things, but you’ll be all right. I know you will. We’ve got to feed you up and get you walking again –“ Jim shook his head. “You’ll be fine. You’re home now.”
“It’s so good to see you. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Jim smiled. “And you. You can’t imagine – well, perhaps you can. I’m so happy.” He laughed again. “Funny old thing, you being in Kent. I’m staying at my parents’ house for a few days. I’ve totted up a bit of leave myself, so I’ve got ‘til Sunday to spend with you, for as long as the nurses let me. The head nurse is a bit of a dragon. I had to give a full accounting of myself before she’d let me see you.”
“How are you?”
“Delirious with joy.” Jim’s smile brightened. “Honestly. I’m ripping. I want to pick you up and carry you out of here, but I know I can’t, more’s the pity.”
“Captain Nicholls.”
Jamie looked up to see a young nurse in a blue and white uniform. She nodded at him and addressed Jim. “I’m afraid I must ask you to leave now. We must have quiet on the ward so the men can rest.”
“Just a few more moments,” Jamie pleaded.
The nurse glanced down at their linked hands and shrugged. “Five minutes, and I must enforce that.” She nodded again and turned on her heel.
Jim bit his lip as her heels tapped out an almost military cadence as she walked away. “Told you – a dragon.”
“That’s the head nurse? Bit young to be in charge of it all.”
“Young, but formidable. Well, mustn’t disobey orders.” Jim placed his other hand on Jamie’s and stroked gently. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Will you tell me what’s happening? With the war, I mean. I’m having trouble believing I’ve been unconscious for more than a month. At least – everything I can remember is terribly hazy.”
“I’m sure it helped with the pain, though. Now they’ve got to wean you off the stuff, and that’s another matter.”
“I’m ready to be free of it tomorrow.”
“I doubt they’d do that to you.” Jim rubbed Jamie’s hand gently. “Shall I bring some newspapers tomorrow? You’d catch up more quickly that way. And here –“ He reached down and retrieved a small bundle of letters from the shelf below his bedside table. “These caught up with you at last. I see there are three of mine here. I’m rather ashamed of them now – they get more piteous and pleading with each successive letter. I hadn’t realised you’d been wounded. Perhaps I should just take them with me.”
“Don’t you dare,” Jamie said. “I shall read them at breakfast tomorrow morning.” He smiled tiredly at Jim. “Thank you for coming to see me. I’m sorry this is such a – an odd way to see you at last.”
“When I think of what might have happened, I’m more than happy to see you like this. You’re healing, that’s the main thing.” Jim’s face grew still. “I shall get on my knees tonight and thank God that you’ve come back to me.”
“Do you think God approves?”
Two spots of pink coloured Jim’s cheeks. He looked down at their joined hands. “He must,” he said softly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” He rose to his feet and collected his rosary, slipping it into his tunic pocket. “I’ll come tomorrow morning.”
“Do, please.”
“I will.” Jim gently folded Jamie’s arm onto his chest and leant close to his ear. “I do love you so.” He straightened, gazing down at Jamie with a tender smile, and winked.
Jamie laughed, heedless of the pain in his belly. Oh, God, it was heaven to see him again.
“That’s my boy,” Jim whispered. He collected his cap, saluted briefly, and turned to go. At the door he paused, looked over his shoulder, and beamed, then disappeared.
Jamie fought the urge to call Jim back. Steady on, you’ll see him tomorrow. Slowly, he reached for the bundle of letters on the bedside table and shuffled through them, setting Jim’s on the bed. He checked the postmarks and opened the oldest one first, glancing up when another nurse, this one plump, with very red lips, touched his shoulder. “Yes?”
“Time for your medicine, Colonel.”
Jamie frowned at the spoon and brown bottle in her hand. “Morphine?”
“Yes, indeed, sir. It’s for the pain.”
“I don’t want any more, nurse….”
“Harding, sir.”
“Nurse Harding. It makes me unbearably foggy. I’ve lost track of the last month and a half because of it. I’m afraid I’m turning into some sort of lotus-eater.”
The nurse raised a shapely blonde brow. “You may change your mind tonight.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Jamie said with a firm nod. “Meanwhile, may I ask a favour? Would you find a doctor to speak to me about my condition as soon as it can be managed?”
“Heavens,” the nurse said. “You’re full of beans, aren’t you? Having your friend visit must have done no end of good.”
“Oh, I think it did.” Jamie smiled. He did feel clearer; prior to Jim’s visit, his conscious thinking had felt as if he were trying to wade through a sea of eye-high fluffy cotton-wool.
“Well, I’m not on until tomorrow noon, but I’ll leave word with Nurse Cahill.” Nurse Harding pocketed her bottle and spoon. “Was that gentleman in your company, then, Colonel?”
“My first regiment,” Jamie said. “A cavalry regiment. He was invalided home.”
“Well, it’s wonderful to see he hasn’t forgot about you.” The nurse gently took the letters from his hands. “You mustn’t read now, you’ll strain your eyes. Sleep now, if you can, and if the pain gets too bad, don’t feel shy about calling out. I must say, it does give me a lift when I see fellows visiting their comrades. Lovely of them.”
“It is,” Jamie agreed fervently. “Indeed it is.”
*
August faded slowly into September, and Jamie was still trapped in the hospital, though his condition had improved immensely, according to the physicians and nurses. He walked with the aid of a cane, and he had weaned himself somewhat ruthlessly away from the morphine, relying on aspirin for the pain. It wasn’t a patch on morphine for making the pain disappear, or at least making him indifferent to it, but it was better than nothing at all.
The visits from Jamie’s parents had dwindled. Cynically, but accurately, Jamie observed that as long as his imminent death wasn’t on the horizon, their attention wavered, but affectionate neglect was their long-established pattern and it never occurred to Jamie to question it as he’d never known anything else. His father had returned to Scotland for the shooting, and his mother remained in London, where he would go when his convalescence at St. Thomas’ ended. She’d come up a few times, bringing books and chocolates that were too rich for him to eat without getting sick. He was grateful for the books, and passed the chocolates on to the other fellows in the ward, who devoured them happily.
And on the week-ends, he had Jim, who had come from London faithfully, spending every possible moment with Jamie, and brushing aside Jamie’s protests that Jim was likely giving up his free time to spend with an invalid. Jim brought books and magazines and newspapers, and together they read about Germany and Austria-Hungary’s dwindling might, the growing, if hard-gained, Allied victories in France and the Balkan theatre. Jim wheeled Jamie about in a chair when the weather was fine, and when they were out of anyone’s sight, allowed him to walk more than the nurses would have approved. They found a secluded bench in a green park near the hospital, and made it their own. They would play a few hands of cards, or Jim would read poetry to Jamie, or they would simply sit quietly, soaking up the last of the summer’s warmth. Jamie listened now, his eyes fixed on Jim’s face as he read, his voice gently rising and falling with the rhythm of the verse.
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Jim closed the worn little book. “What do you make of it?”
“I suppose he means that when he’s feeling low and wretched and jealous of other chaps’ good fortune, he thinks about the one he loves best, and all at once things are quite sunny again.”
“Sensible fellow, that Will.” Jim smiled and stretched. “I had better get you back, or they’ll send out a search party. You must be cold, too – I should have brought a lap rug or some such. You’ll catch cold in just pyjamas and a bathrobe.”
“I’m perfectly warm,” Jamie said, then regretfully peered at the waning sunlight hovering uncertainly through the leaves of the trees. “It does seem to be getting dark earlier and earlier.”
Jim heaved himself to his feet and tucked his book into his pocket. “Well, come on, then, Colonel, before the night falls and I get another tongue-lashing from the nurses for keeping you out past supper time. They’re going to bar me from visiting you if it happens again.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“You’re the model of gallantry.” Jim looked around, then bent and pressed a quick kiss to Jamie’s lips. “Good heavens, you’ve practically a full beard there. Why haven’t the nurses shaved you?”
“They’ve other things to worry about – a new bunch of men arrived day before yesterday. There hasn’t been time.” Jamie ruefully brushed a hand up his cheek, wincing at the stubble there. “I’d have asked for some hot water and a razor myself, but they’ve been so busy, I didn’t like to trouble them.”
“Chivalrous of you.” Jim began to push the wheelchair toward the hospital. “I think I can do something about it, if you like.”
“I’d be grateful.”
“Not at all, old chap.” Jim patted his shoulder. “We’ve got to keep you looking spruce.”
Jamie fell silent as Jim rolled the chair along the pavement. He’d no right to expect Jim to wait on him so patiently, but every moment spent with him felt like the most fragile and precious of gifts, and Jim was so merry, so full of buoyant spirit as he blithely brushed aside Jamie’s feeble protests. “I just want to be with you,” he’d said, and how could Jamie argue that when he wanted the same thing? After almost two years of loneliness and terror and violence, it was enough to simply have him nearby, to study his dear face, the colour of his eyes, the vivacity of his lavish smile, the grace of his lean body, the cleverness of his long hands as they sketched a tree or tidied Jamie’s blankets or turned the page of a book. Jamie was not, he knew, a man anyone in his right mind would call humble, but the miracle of Jim’s presence during these last warm days of summer made him feel very small and very humble indeed.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“I was just…I was thinking, a little while ago, about the reversal of our roles. That is – four years ago you were in a wheelchair, and I was pushing you.”
“How true. Thus are the mighty fallen.” Jim sounded amused. “You’re in my nefarious clutches now, fair sir.”
Jamie chuckled. “Four years. It seemed to pass so slowly.”
“It was nigh unbearable for me, I don’t mind telling you. But you’re home at last. I’m content.”
“And what now?” Jamie tried to put the question lightly, but it fell like a stone, weighted with anxiety.
“Ah.” Jim pushed him in silence for a moment. “There’s the rub, isn’t it?”
“Jim, can we stop for a bit?”
Obligingly, Jim stopped the chair beside a low stone wall and sat, peering earnestly at Jamie. “I’ve been thinking of that very thing, Jamie, but I haven’t got an answer and I didn’t like to bring it up when you’re still healing.”
“I won’t shatter because of a difficult question, old man. I’m not made of crystal.” Jamie quieted until two women walking a placid Labrador and a nervous, yapping Pekingese passed by and moved out of earshot. The mingled scent of their perfume lingered a moment then faded away. “Jim, you’re so good and honest and fine – but the war made for peculiar circumstances, didn’t it?”
Jim’s expression became troubled. “What are you telling me?”
Jamie shook his head, feeling bereft and helpless. He wished he were as eloquent as Jim, that words fell easily from his lips. “You’ve been so…marvellous, but now the war’s ending – if not this year, then almost certainly next year, and it’s only that I…I wasn’t certain about how you felt regarding all…this.”
Jim frowned thunderously, then his eyes widened. “Are you saying you think I’ve gone off you, or that I’m planning to?”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I know your parents must be eager for you to meet young ladies, to start a family.”
“You weren’t listening to that poem, I see.”
“I certainly was,” Jamie replied with a touch of indignation.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Jim said softly. “I know that. It’s never been easy for men like us, Jamie, and as I said, I haven’t answers. No, I do have one. I love you with all my heart, and I shall love you until the day I die. I know that the moment you told me that you loved me was the pinnacle of happiness for me, and that every day since, no matter how fraught with fear and distress, has been the better because of that knowledge. I have hopes, Jamie, but no expectations.”
It was an unnerving and amazing thing to hear. Jamie, who preferred certainty and preparedness above all things, felt a strange thrill of exultation and terror. Jim, who had waited for him, who had held his heart and opened his body to Jamie’s touch, was willing to leap the abyss. Tentatively, Jamie spoke. “I suppose, then, that we shall have to take our fences as we find them.”
Relief flooded Jim’s face. “Do you mean that?”
Jamie nodded. What a curious freedom. “It’s a bit nerve-wracking.”
“I know. But we’ve got to start somewhere.” Jim stood. “Come on, we’re really going to cop it.”
The nurses were too busy to chide Jim for bringing Jamie back late, and in fact happily accommodated Jim’s request for shaving things. “We’ve not had time lately,” one of the nurses confided, “what with all the new lads. It’s good of you, Captain.”
“Not at all.” Jim trimmed Jamie’s mustache with a tiny pair of scissors, then carefully sharpened the razor on a leather strop the nurse had given him. He wetted and lathered Jamie’s face, then tilted Jamie’s head back and shaved his throat with a sure, steady hand. “Something quite exciting about doing this to you in the midst of all these unsuspecting people.”
Jamie was glad for the shaving soap that obscured the flush rising to his face. “You’ve got a cheek, Captain.”
“Indeed, haven’t I just.” Jim grinned a bit wickedly, then wiped the blade and shaved Jamie’s cheeks and chin, tilting his face this way and that, humming absently as he worked. “There! Not bad, if I do say so myself. If this editing position doesn’t work out the way I hope, perhaps I can become a barber.”
Jamie laughed, wiped off the remnants of soap, and felt his newly sleek face. “Much better. Thanks, old man. Now I won’t scandalise Mother when she comes to visit.”
“Will she be taking you home at last?”
“I hope so,” Jamie said. “I’m deuced tired of this place, not that they haven’t been terribly kind. I’m sure they can use the spare bed, too.”
“It’ll be wonderful to have you back in London.” Jim’s eyes gleamed with sudden mischief, and he lowered his voice to an insinuating murmur. “I don’t suppose you know exactly when you’ll be able to –“
“There you are!”
Jamie stiffened at the familiar booming voice. He looked up at Jim for a moment, then closed his eyes briefly. “Bloody hell,” he whispered.
Jim’s brow furrowed, and he turned to look at the newcomer, a tall man with dark hair, blue eyes, and a roguish, handsome face. He wore the uniform of an army private with style and dash, as if it had been tailored for him. Jamie would have bet his earthly fortune that it had. The man smiled at Jamie, but the smile was perfunctory, failing to reach his eyes.
“Been looking everywhere for you. Ready to come home?”
Resignation filtered into Jamie’s heart and bled out into his voice. “Hello, Philip.”
*
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Date: 2012-07-16 11:33 am (UTC)The shaving scene was duly noted, you minx!*g*
I am a little worried by Philip's appearance and hope it is not going to throw a spanner in the works.
The artwork by
Have a good trip and we will wait patiently for the next instalment. *Hugs*
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 04:28 pm (UTC)Hee! Told you, complete kink. Lovely.
I'm glad you liked the artwork! I was so honored to get it. I'm so sorry you're sick, though! Urgh, hope you feel better soon! Thank you, as ever, for reading, and for the good thoughts! I'm excited to get a break. :D