***
Thomas and Charlie follow the others down the side of Castle Hill, stumbling past bomb craters and the smashed mountain stone. The bodies of Allied and German soldiers killed in the battles of the previous week litter the hill like debris, and Thomas is glad of the black night and the thick smoke that cloaks them from view. They are a few metres up Hangman’s Hill when a grenade crashes onto the hill above them, sending out shards of stone like daggers. A split second of silence, then the screams as men jolt back to consciousness. It’s true what they says. We all cries for our mothers and our lovers in the end.
A blast of machine gun fire. Men falling through the smoke. Thomas grabs Charlie’s arm and they run towards an opening in the mountain face. Bullets ricochet off the stone around them as they dodge into the crevice and flatten themselves against the ground.
‘Holy, Jaysus, God,’ Charlie says as he pants into the dust.
Outside, the air is a mash of the throbbing artillery guns, exploding grenades and blasts of machine gun fire. And the screams and cries of men.
‘We’d best lie low, Charlie. Till things calm down.’
‘Like I was ever gonna go out there, b’y. There’s no way in hell. I intends to live a long, long life.’ He lifts his head and yells towards the opening. ‘You bloody bastards!’
A whizz. A ricochet. A gasp.
Charlie slumps against Thomas, his eyes wide in surprise, a trickle of blood tracing down his cheek from the neat hole in his forehead.
***
‘Tommy? Komm nach draussen, Tommy.’
A stone rolls into the crevice. Thomas’s heart beats a drum in his chest. Another stone hops along the ground, stopping an inch from his nose. His fingers turn white where they grip the barrel and trigger of his rifle. So, this is how it ends. Tom Parsons and Charlie Murphy dead on Hangman’s Hill. They couldn’t put that on their gravestones. His mam wouldn’t have that, that’s for sure. It would have to be something more … heroic. The dawn is colouring the sky above the smoke pink. He has a clear view of Monte Cassino and the ruined monastery, sitting like a pink pearl above the fog. Maybe heaven looked like this. Maybe he was already halfway there.
Rising to his feet, he takes a deep breath. I’m sorry, Ellie Mae. I’m sorry.
He runs out of the crevice, just as a grenade explodes outside. His body is in the air. Then he hits the ground hard, his head smashing against a rock. He is falling. Falling. And then, nothing.
***
Thomas opens his eyes. He has landed amongst the branches of a long-dead bush on the hillside. His body is a map of pain, but none of it as bad as the fire emanating from his right boot. Raising his head, he sees his boot, bloated and distorted like a blown-out tyre. Above it his leg is a pulp of bone and shredded skin and wool. He falls back against the branches. His head throbs and he raises his hand to his forehead. When he looks at his hand it’s like it’s been dipped in a tin of red paint. Cold is seeping into his body. He shivers. He hopes it won’t take long.
He drifts. He’s in Cow Tower with Ellie. Moonlight streams in through the open roof, lighting her face in a silver glow. She takes his hand and guides it to her stomach. Her blue-grey eyes watch him as he cups the roundness.
‘Our child,’ she says. ‘We’re having a child.’
A flash of white light and his body is lifted as the explosion smashes into the hill beside him. His eyes fly open. The barrage goes off around him like an orchestra of war. Then, just as suddenly the guns stop.
He closes his eyes and lets his body float in the emptiness opening up to him. He is lying on a raft that is being pulled over the sea, bumping and dipping as the raft slides over the waves. He turns his head and sees the barnacled grey-black skin of a humpback whale slide into the sea. He’d had no idea there were whales in heaven. He turns his head to the other side and catches the dark eye of another whale before it disappears into the deep green waves.
When he wakes he is in a cave. There are others there, wounded, like him. They are moaning and crying out for their mothers and their lovers. In German.
A medical orderly leans over him. He removes Thomas’s helmet and wraps newspaper around his head. He says something to another orderly when he looks at Thomas’s leg. The word echoes around Thomas’s head like a ricocheting bullet.
Kaput. Kaput. Kaput.
Chapter 45
Tippy’s Tickle – 17 September 2001
‘Good morning, Princess Grace.’
Sophie opens her eyes. She smiles. ‘Good morning.’
Sam sits on the bed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, holding two mugs. ‘Coffee? Milk, no sugar, right?’
Sophie stretches under the tangle of sheets and sits up against the pillows. The large bed almost fills the room, its wooden headboard further evidence of Sam’s woodworking skills. Tucking a sheet around her body, she holds out a hand. ‘Thanks. That’s perfect.’
Sam watches her take a sip and smiles, fine lines fanning out from his dark eyes as his tanned, bearded face softens. He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘I like you like this.’
Sophie runs her hand across her face. ‘I must look a mess. Is my mascara all smudged?’
‘Doesn’t matter. You look cute.’
‘Cute?’ She hands him back the mug. ‘I’ve never been accused of being cute before. Now I have to look.’
Sam sets the mugs down on a wooden chair beside the bed and reaches out for Sophie’s arm as she kicks at the sheets. Clambering over the covers, he rolls on top of her.
‘Sam. Sam, what are you doing?’
‘Just looking.’
Sophie flops
