Subsequent awakenings increased his dread. He came to understand that the ringing was inside his head. It grew more bearable with each return to consciousness, but he couldn’t hear what was said by the faces that stared down at him. Their mouths opened and closed but nothing reached him. Nor did he know if his own mouth was relaying the signals his brain was sending to it. He tried to speak of his fears, but the lack of response in the faces above him persuaded him his lips weren’t moving. Time was meaningless. He couldn’t tell how often he drifted in and out of consciousness or how long his periods of sleep lasted. He convinced himself that days and weeks had passed since he’d been brought to this place, and a slow anger burned inside him as threads of insight began to knit together. Something cataclysmic had happened. He was in hospital. The talking heads were doctors. But they weren’t helping him and they couldn’t see that he was awake. He had a terrifying anxiety that he was in the hands of enemies –
He had a clear recollection, which he played over and over in his mind because it offered an explanation, of boarding an RAF Hercules on the day he left for the Middle East. He guessed the plane must have crashed on take- off, for his last memory was of buckling himself into his seat.
*
‘Charles. Wake up, Charles.’ Fingers pinched the skin on his hand. ‘There’s a good boy. Come on, now. Wake up.’ He opened his eye and looked at the middle-aged nurse who was bending over him. ‘I heard you,’ he said. The words came out as a long slur but he knew he’d said them. ‘You’ve had an operation and you’re now in recovery,’ she told him, answering the question she thought he’d asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Good man.’ She placed his thumb on a button at the top. ‘Push that if you need me. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, but in case of emergencies, holler. You’re a lucky fellow. If God hadn’t given you a skull like a rhinoceros, you wouldn’t have survived.’
She started to move away but Acland used his free hand to catch at her skirt. ‘How did it crash?’
‘Say again.’
He took the words back into his throat like a ventriloquist and repeated them in slow, guttural fashion. ‘Khow . . . di’ . . . i’ . . . khrash?’
‘How did what crash?’
‘The plane.’ He tried again. ‘Khe khlane. I was on a khlane.’
‘Don’t you remember what happened?’
He shook his head.
‘OK. I’ll ask someone to explain it to you.’ She patted his hand again. ‘But don’t worry, love. You’ve got a few wires crossed, that’s all. They’ll right themselves eventually.’
*
Time passed and nothing happened. The nurse returned at intervals, but her complacent smiles and inane comments annoyed him. Once or twice, he attempted to remind her that he needed explanations but, out of stupidity or bloody-mindedness, she refused to understand what he was saying. A scream was circling around his head and he found himself struggling with anger in a way that he didn’t understand.
She had no trouble understanding that, he thought, watching her smile disappear. ‘I can’t turn it off if you keep your finger on it,’ she said, indicating a bleeping light on a remote receiver clipped to her waistband. ‘You’ll have everyone in here if you don’t let go.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ll disconnect it,’ she warned. ‘You’re not the only patient who’s had surgery today.’ She held out her palm. ‘Come on, Charles. Give me a break, eh? I’ve made the call. It’s not my fault it’s taking so long. This is a National Health Service hospital, and there’s only one psychiatric consultant on call at the moment. He’ll be here before long. You have to trust me on that.’
He tried to say he didn’t need a psychiatrist. There was nothing wrong with his brain. He simply wanted to know what had happened. There were other men on the plane. Had they survived? But the concentration needed to speak the words (which were incomprehensible even to his own ears) was so intense that the woman easily deprived him of his buzzer. He swore at her again.
She checked the PCA, saw that he hadn’t used it. ‘Is it pain that’s making you angry?’
‘No.’
She didn’t believe him. ‘No one expects you to be a hero, Charles. Pain-free sleep will do you more good than staying awake and becoming frustrated.’ She shook her head. ‘You shouldn’t be this alert anyway, not after what you’ve been through.’