When Skies Have Fallen
Page 24
* * * * *
Chapter Fifteen: May, 1945
The moment hung like a scene in a photograph while Jim’s statement sank in. Arty’s heart was beating so hard and fast he could even feel it in his dead legs. Dozens of questions clamoured to be asked—Was it official? Had it been confirmed? Did it mean the war was over, or was Germany fighting on?—but the answers to all of those questions were overshadowed by his need to know one thing.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Doctor’s orders,” Jim said.
“Don’t tell Arty the Führer’s dead?”
Jim laughed. “Not quite. Doc said it was important you stayed calm—no excitement, no shocks—to give your blood vessels time to heal.”
“So you’re trying to kill me,” Arty stated dryly.
Jim smiled and kissed him on the forehead. If he’d told him the war was over it would have been very different, but after more than a year together, Jim knew Arty would take the news of Hitler’s death calmly. Until he saw or heard for himself that Germany had unconditionally surrendered, the war was still on.
“Is there anything else I need to know?” Arty asked.
“Other than I love you? Nope.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” Jim narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
Arty frowned at him. “No reason.” He just knew there was more, but perhaps he shouldn’t push it. After all, if Jim was withholding information from him, it would be for health reasons, so he was likely safer not knowing. He let it go and instead asked, “What else is going on in the big wide world?”
Jim was noticeably relieved to be let off the hook and they moved on to discussing recent events—Mussolini’s death, Italy’s surrender, the Americans and Soviets advancing on Berlin—and agreed it certainly looked like the end really was in sight. When they’d finished discussing the war, Arty casually dropped in a question about the accident, for he knew only what he remembered, and Jim immediately tensed.
With gentle reassurance that he wasn’t going to bleed to death, Arty was able to glean that the pilot died, but his navigator had survived. They had been taking the bomber up to Lincoln—one of twelve replacement craft for those lost on recent missions—when three of the engines cut out. The pilot managed to restart one on his approach to Minton, where he had intended to make an emergency landing. There was no way of knowing if the pilot would have been successful had the runway been clear, but thanks to Arty’s quick thinking there were only two fatalities and three casualties, including himself.
“Who else died?” Arty asked.
“Corporal Allan?” Jim said, unsure of the man’s name as they’d never met.
“Reg Allan—Charlie’s right-hand man?”
Jim nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“What a shame. Poor Charlie. How’s he taking it?”
Jim shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Arty decided not to say anything further, as he still needed to have that conversation with Jim about telling Charlie the truth, but now wasn’t the time. Once he was out of hospital, whenever that might be…
The nurses were on their way back with the patients from their impromptu celebration, and Jim vacated the bed.
“I’d better go,” he said, straightening the cage and blankets. “I’m on duty in half an hour.”
Arty nodded drowsily; it was the longest he’d stayed awake since the accident and only made possible by Jim’s ministrations. “Thank you,” he murmured.
“Always welcome,” Jim replied, chancing another quick kiss before he strolled out of the ward, acknowledging the happy, exhausted patients with a lazy salute.
Arty watched until Jim was out of sight, and shut his eyes. Not gangrene. That was something. Of course it was just his bloody luck to get this close to the end of the war without injury and then cripple himself. But at least he was still alive, unlike the Lancaster’s pilot and poor Reggie Allan, and he hadn’t lost his sight or his mind. These were surely things to be thankful for.