CHRISTMAS 1971
Keeping
to the shadows, Face quickly
made his way to the main wing of the psychiatric hospital drawing on all his
stealth abilities as he moved from bush to bush in the moonlight. It wasn’t
exactly
Reaching
the main building he slowly crept along beside it, glancing up every so often
into the windows of the rooms to
make sure he didn’t miss the right one. Even in the dark he was sure he’d find the one he wanted without any major
difficulties, but it paid to be certain. Stopping, he reached the right one.
Thank God it was on the ground
floor.
Reaching
into his jacket, he drew out a small packet of screwdrivers and slowly started
to unscrew the grate, pausing and wincing as it made a noise. Stopping, he
waited, expecting lights to go on at any moment. Nothing happened. Letting go
of his held breath, he slowly continued his work, easing the grate off the
window. It was actually easier than he had thought, but then again hospitals
like these were designed to keep people in, not keep people out.
Opening the window, he pulled himself up and in,
pausing for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room.
“Murdock?”
There was no reply. Not that he had really expected one,
but it was good to dream anyway.
Crossing
the small room, he looked down at the long, skinny figure on the bed. Big brown eyes stared blankly back at
him, void and somehow detached, as if they were no longer a passage way to the
pilot’s soul.
Face
swallowed. He had been expecting this. His initial investigations into the
pilot’s condition had not been promising to say the least: post traumatic stress disorder,
reoccurring nightmares, fits of panicked violence, flashbacks and states of
delusion made for an interesting,
but disconcerting, read.
Up
until today, though, it somehow hadn’t seemed real. Now though, as he faced his old friend
for the first time since the Hanoi bank job, the reality of the situation
seemed came crashing down on
him. Murdock had suffered a serious breakdown. He was no longer who he had
been, before or even after the camp. At least after the camp, despite a habit
of binge drinking at the beginning in
an attempt to forget, the pilot had been able to hold it together. Now, though, that seemed a long time ago.
“Hey, Murdock.”
He
tried pulling a chair up to the bed, but gave up when he realised it was
screwed down to the floor. He
realised he had the option of either perching
on the bed, or sitting on the floor. He opted on the floor. He wasn’t too sure
how Murdock would take his physical presence if he sat on the bed next to him
and the last thing he wanted was for Murdock to go into some kind of panic
attack and draw the nurses’ attention to them.
“Hey,
Murdock, it’s me, Face.”
There
was no response. Not that he had expected there to be. The blank eyes just continued
to watch him. Not moving, just watching.
“Well,
uh, surprise. Bet you weren’t expecting me to turn up. No, uh, I guess you
weren’t.” Face let his voice trail off as he searched for something to say.
“Sorry
it’s taken us so long to get to you. Hannibal, BA and I, well, we’re in a bit
of trouble you might say.” He forced himself to smile a little.
“You
know us, trouble where ever we go, but this time it’s a little more serious.
You might have heard about it. Remember the last mission you dropped us of for,
the Hanoi bank one, well, we uh robbed the place. Got through
that one okay. Surprise really, but we survived, got back to the south
and just when we thought everything would be okay, we were arrested. Yeah,” he
sighed, “something about us faking our orders and robbing the bank for our own
gain.
He
grinned to himself in the dark, but still got no response from the pilot.
“Anyway,
Still
no response, but now into his stride, Face ploughed on.
“Anyway,
they arrested us and sent us to jail. Always thought I would end up in one of
those places someday. Eventually they flew us home and decided that we needed
to stand trail. They got together a great court martial, even provided us with
a lawyer. Of course he was an idiot, but they didn’t like it when we pointed
that out to them. Guess they were so concerned
with making us scapegoats for the entire war that they didn’t care if we were
guilty or not.
“Eventually
we had enough. Well,
He
broke off with a slight laugh, gently shaking his head.
“I
hear Colonel Lynch, the idiot who apparently runs the place, was absolutely livid. Not that I blame
him. After all, he didn’t lose just one prisoner, he lost three.
“So,
after that we became fugitives, on the run from the MPs and the cops. It took
us a while to shake them, but
once we did we started to look around for you. You didn’t think we’d just
abandon you, did you, Murdock?”
The
eyes just stared at him blankly.
Deciding
to risk it, Face slowly reached up a hand and gently touched the pilot’s hand.
The eyes blinked but apart from that nothing happened. Taking
that as a good sign, Face grew a little bolder and turned his hand so he could
curl his fingers around Murdock’s, holding the hand properly. It felt a
little cold to touch, but at least the pilot was alive, at least he was real.
“I’m
sorry, buddy,” he whispered, squeezing gently. “We would have come earlier but
we couldn’t. We couldn’t risk it, for your sake. I swear we didn’t desert you
and we’re not planning to,
either. You remember what
There
was no reply, but he hadn’t been
expecting one.
It
was hard, harder than he had expected,
and he had to keep biting back his emotions. The last thing Murdock needed was
for him to lose it on him.
“You
know, it’s almost Christmas. I know you love Christmas. Even last Christmas, once
we got the bottles out of your hands. It’s a time to be merry, or so
they say. Not that we have much to be merry about, but we’re alive and that’s
all that matters. We’re alive, and you’re alive and we’ll get through all this,
I promise you that, and everything will be okay and, and…”
His voice cracking, he knew he had to stop. Dropping
his head, he leaned it against the bed, fighting back the tears. It was as if
all the emotions he had not allowed himself to feel for a year had finally all caught up with him and were threatening to spill over.
Breathing
deeply, he fought them back and swallowed them down. Murdock did not need him
to lose it. He wouldn’t lose it now. Not now. Later maybe, but not now,
not here.
“I
uh, I’ve got to go. Hannibal and BA don’t know I’m here and I don’t want to get
caught by those nurses they have around here. I just wanted to see you, make
sure you knew that we’re around,
that we hadn’t left you.”
Very
gently he untangled his hand from Murdock’s grip and rose to his feet.
“Goodbye
for now, Murdock. I’ll be back, promise. Hannibal and BA, too. We haven’t left you, and uh, Merry
Christmas.”
Crossing
the room, he silently climbed out the window again, picking up his tools to
screw back on the grate when he swore he heard a very faint, “Merry Christmas,
Face.”
*-*-*
