by Gil Hogg
But a big unresolved space had opened up between us. We both understood this and stepped back. She understood with clarity the aversion I had developed for veterans’ homes from the moment I mentioned it to her on our visit to her department. I didn’t have to repeat or explain it. She might even have thought that my reaction was normal enough. At the same time, her commitment to continue to nurse damaged vets was inspiring and of vital importance to her; it was more than just an idea or a plan. I couldn’t mistake her sincere resolve from her words at the hospital.
My problem with Jim Blake also remained unresolved; it was always flickering at the back of my consciousness when I was walking and trying not to think. But I had thought, and I had just about decided to adopt Amherst’s advice and tell Gail. It was an approach which was honest, if cruel for her, but I had come to believe it could be worked through. I had to face my version of reality; Gail too had to understand it.
I knew that Gail would never ever believe that her brother had committed a war crime. She would regard my version of what happened at Kam Sung as the delusion of a sick man. And why shouldn’t I let her take that view? At the same time, I would be saying, “This is my view and my feeling. I may be wrong.” I would be arguing that the two positions were not mutually exclusive. Meadows’ argument was that what happened in the past depended on the viewer. We could adjust our lives with the ulcer of Kam Sung in mind; in practice, she could keep me sufficiently clear of Jim and his life for it not to become inflamed. I loved Gail; I was prepared to compromise and I thought Gail too was strong enough to compromise. And my own feelings about Jim Blake would probably weaken over time; they were in the nature of revulsion; there was nothing aggressive towards him in them.
The new problem I had to cope with was Gail’s work and the constant shadow of damaged vets in both our lives. The spectre of becoming a damaged vet had haunted me – and probably all those on frontline service – during my entire time in the Army. And that spectral fear had been expanded and sharpened from the time I met Gail. Her work and the need to talk about it made the threat of damage more real and seemed to bring it closer. Having sex in an operating theatre! Gail suffered the same fear by proxy, for me, for her brother and for her charges; it had driven her out of ‘Nam.
Surely, Gail’s determination to continue her work with vets – laudible and, for a woman like her, perfectly understandable – was capable of compromise too? It was 1970, the day of victory would come soon, or we could agree a time limit on her service. Two years? I could handle that. I’d be up to my ears in teacher training or sorting out a new career. All I wanted was the understanding that after a reasonable time we would banish this present scene.
I decided I would speak to her at a moment when we had the leisure to reason, maybe in bed on Sunday morning. I was cheered by this resolution. I could see a path ahead, a difficult but ultimately worthwhile path.
*
Gail was a senior supervisor and rarely worked at night except to cover a staff shortage. However, on one such night I was in the apartment alone preparing my dinner. I had completed a brisk five-mile walk in the afternoon and had a shower. I planned to read in the evening until Gail came home about 11pm – the New York Times, and then something serious: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (if you feared you might be mad I thought it might help to examine our collective madness). I was going to dine on cold cooked salmon and salad, with a sweetcorn cob to start. I had set the table and put the cob on the gas to boil. For company while I worked, I had switched on the local television news. I wasn’t watching or listening, at least not with any real attention; the screen was above the sideboard behind me.
I became aware that the screen voices were suddenly excited, almost frantic. I turned around to see the red tag on the screen: Breaking news.
For a moment, all I could discern was a jumble of lights flaring in the darkness and the howl of sirens; not one siren, but several; then the white bodies of police cruisers. The camera jumped from scene to scene. A five-storey building lit by garden lights. A road packed with white cruisers. A knot of police and officials on the kerb talking with tense gestures. The dark figures of people running between the building and the roadside. The gradual formation of a cordon of police officers in front of the building. The clatter of a helicopter above. Searchlights fingering the houses and trees. An aerial view of the building with illuminated gardens.
And then the voice over: … This tragic scene… the Veterans’ Hospital in Richmond… the police and emergency services were called an hour ago… too late to avoid the tragedy of a man believed to be armed with an automatic rifle who entered the building and fired indiscriminately at patients and staff… we understand the man proceeded through the wards, firing… He finally barricaded himself on the roof… Military Security Police have pinned him down and are attempting to persuade him to give himself up…
The sickening fact thudded into my consciousness. This was happening in real life a block away, and Gail was on duty in that building! I turned off the gas, changed into street clothes and ran the block to the hospital. I was there in minutes. I came to a police tape and a cop waved me away.
“My fiancée is in there!”
“Sorry buddy. Keep away. Give the services space.”
“How can I?”
“You can’t go in there.”
Other people were beginning to gather on the sidewalk and road, some of them possibly with loved ones inside, but mostly just curious.
“Do you know what’s happening in there? Does anybody here?” I asked, loudly.
“The military are taking care of it,” a cop’s voice said.
Another cop chimed in, “They’ll blow the guy’s ass off.”
I thought there must be a supervisor who could explain more, and I moved along the cordon. Bodies were being stretchered out to ambulances. I approached one of the medics.
“Do you have a log of who these people are?”
“No, sir. This is an emergency. We gotta get them to accident and emergency in town, St Martin’s, quick-smart.”
“My fiancée is in there.”
“I’m sorry sir, I can’t help you.”
I pushed past people to the hospital gates. I found a senior cop with gold braid on his uniform. When I could get his attention I said, “My fiancée’s in there.”
“This is not a police command. The hospital is a military establishment,” he said.
I heard a burst of automatic rifle fire from inside the building. “You don’t know anything? What in hell are you doing?”
His mouth tightened. “We’re liaising with the military and providing support, sir.”
I wanted to ask him if there was anybody giving information to friends and relatives of those inside, but his attention was claimed by somebody else. I strode through and around the crowd like a demented man, looking for somebody who knew something. The bodies were still being taken to the ambulances. “But this is a hospital,” I said to a man near me who appeared to be as confused as I was.
“Guess it’s a mite fucked up in there,” he said.
I collided with another man wearing a press badge and carrying a camera. I clamped his arm. “Can you tell me anything? My fiancée’s in there.”
“Reckon about twenty-five. Highest I’ve heard.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Injured?”
“No clues. It’s always more, isn’t it?”
“Shit. Why isn’t anybody in charge out here?”
He began to ease past me. His lip curled. “Army screw-up. One of their own nutballs beat their security.”
I looked at my watch. I had been prowling through the crowd for ten or fifteen minutes, but it felt like an hour, getting nowhere. No message from Gail. She would know I would be worried, and one of the first things she would do would be to call me at home.
There was a possibility she had somehow left a message at the apartment. I raced back up
the block. She could well be too busy to call, looking after the injured, but…
I burst into the apartment. No message. The television was still on, and on the story. The banner at the foot of the screen said it in few words. Siege at Veterans’ Hospital over – gunman dead. I watched the dead-pan presenter, a cherubic young blonde. We learn that there were tense moments when it was believed that the lone shooter would give himself up in response to requests from Military Police… however it’s reported that at the last moment he came out from cover threateningly with his weapon ready for firing… Military Police marksmen say they had no alternative but to shoot… The only information we have about the shooter is that he was an inmate of the hospital about to be discharged… We can’t give you the total number of people killed in the shooter’s earlier attack, except to say that it is believed to exceed fifteen… Identification of those killed and injured is proceeding as we are on air… We will be returning to this story during the evening…
I took the keys for Gail’s car and drove to St Martin’s Hospital A&E to see if Gail was amongst the wounded. My frantic enquiries led me to join a group of about five people who were on the same errand; they were as distraught as I was.
I half-listened to an official telling us what the procedure was. “I’ll pass round this list of those we have identified,” he said. “Two men have not been identified.”
The paper moved quickly through the group with cries of anguish as people discovered or failed to discover the person they sought. Some people moved the list in front of their eyes as though their eyes had failed; I think I was the last to see it. Gail’s name wasn’t on the list. My heart felt as though it was bursting in my chest.
Gail had her name on her uniform, and on a security card around her neck. She would have been easy to identify if she was injured. It was pointless me considering unidentified people, and I had to wait while the official outlined the procedure for this.
“How do we find out the names of those who have died?” I asked when he was through, my voice dry and thin.
“Well, it’s for the military. I’m sure they’ll make an announcement as soon as possible.”
“As soon as possible must be now.”
“Yes, quite possibly. At the Veterans’ Hospital. We’re only concerned here with the… ”
I walked out and drove back to Gail’s apartment. Inside, the television blared in the darkness; now focusing on a car wreck on the interstate highway. No message from Gail. No message. I called the Veterans’ Hospital. A tape reeled over. If you are enquiring about the tragic shooting at the hospital tonight, please be aware that we cannot release the names of the victims until the next of kin have been notified… and please note that all injured personnel are being treated at St Martin’s Hospital… press one for all other business…
I pressed one. A male operator came on the line. “It’s about my fiancée… ”
“If it’s about the incident here tonight, I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t… ”
“Suppose I was her next-of-kin, her brother… ?”
“If you were next-of-kin we would call you.”
“When?”
“Those calls are going through now.”
Nobody would call me. I wasn’t kin. I was unknown. I shut off the phone and ran the block to the hospital. The scene was still lit up. The crowd had shrunk. The tapes twisted in the breeze. Two empty cruisers with small red lights glowing inside were at the kerb. A few police stood around silently. At the hospital doors inside the gates I could see military police. Some people were coming out, probably crippled with grief but in the night light it didn’t show.
I spoke to the nearest cop: “Can I go in there?”
He squinted at me impassively. “No, sir.”
“But my fiancée works in there! She’s a nursing supervisor. She’s not amongst the injured at the hospital. She hasn’t called me… ”
He shook his head slowly, negatively, not really listening.
Another group of men stood at the curb by the gate muttering. I had no idea why they were there; they might have been ambulance drivers or press or even lost hearts like me. “Can I go in there?” I said in a loud voice, which broke into their talk. “I want to find out if my fiancée is dead.”
The loud almost, hysterical word ‘dead’ stirred them. The men gave me wrinkled looks; they seemed to have heard so much bad news that they couldn’t be involved in any more. “I don’t think so… ” one of them said, weakly.
My temper was rising at the impotence of those around me, and my own. I was determined to get inside. I passed the cop at the gate without looking at him, and started down the path, walking fast, eyes front. I heard the clatter of steps behind me, and felt tight hands grasping each of my arms. I was dragged backwards to the gate by two cops, my heels scraping along the ground.
“Get this, buddy. You aint goin’ in there! Now git out and go home!” one of them shouted.
I went back to the car, agonised by the certainty that if I entered the hospital I would only confirm what I already knew.