by Thomas Wood
The Evader
Alfie Lewis Thriller Book 1
Thomas Wood
BoleynBennett Publishing
Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Wood
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Thomas Wood
Visit my website at www.ThomasWoodBooks.com
Printed in the United Kingdom
First Printing: August 2019
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For my Grandma. The one person who will never get to read my books that I wish had.
1
He cleared his throat as he irritably asked me the same question that he had been asking for the past two hours. I didn’t know what exactly was holding me back from telling him my story at this moment, but I seemed to be taking an immeasurable pleasure from winding this bloke up.
He was quite young, probably a few years older than my twenty-one years, but visually he was still only a young lad. He had prominent cheekbones and a glint in his eye that suggested he too, was getting some sort of a kick out of this.
I felt my shoulders droop as I let out another sigh in answer to his unwavering questions.
“I’ll ask you again,” he said, this time with a slightly more agitated tone to his voice, “how did you end up here?” The last few times that he had asked, he had grown slightly more aggressive in tone, which only added to the satisfaction that I was drawing from this bizarre scenario that I now found myself in.
He raised an expectant eyebrow for a moment, like a parent awaiting an excuse as to why a whole load of food had gone missing, before it dropped back into a semi-scowl as I scoffed at him.
I looked him up and down; he was quite a handsome individual, with a darker pigment of skin than was probably expected of someone who had been perched behind a desk for the last few months. He was clean shaven, not a single hair on his head seemed out of place, there were no bags that clung defiantly to the underside of his eyes and he smelled fresh. He didn’t have a distinctive smell like some people do, but the aroma that radiated from him, was far from the plant-killing stench that I was currently reeking out.
More importantly than all of that though, was that he hadn’t done what I had done.
I amused myself with the different stories I could tell, the bits that I could leave out that would leave him more annoyed than satisfied, the bits of the story that I could embellish to make myself feel better and bury parts of it to the depths of my mind, never to be brought back again until I lay on my deathbed.
I continued to entertain myself with what version of events he would like. Would he like the clean version? Or the truth? I doubted he would have been able to handle the truth, he barely looked like he even knew what war was really like, he probably hadn’t fired a shot since he left basic training. That was if he had done basic training, or whether Uncle Rupert in the War Office had pulled some almighty strings to get him into uniform but keep him hundreds of miles away from where the slaughter was.
I had so many thoughts buzzing around my head that I quickly convinced myself that I had far more questions for him, than he did for me.
Was he wanting the glossy, rounded version? Did he want to be able to tell my story publicly? Was he eventually going to let me out, or keep me here indefinitely?
And perhaps, most importantly of all;
Where was ‘here’ exactly?
In parts, I wasn’t even sure if I believed it, and I had been the one who was there, some of it felt like it had all been in some sort of deranged dream. I had done some unbelievable things, some so embarrassing and harrowing that I couldn’t quite believe I was entertaining the thought of sharing it with another human being.
I had nothing left anymore, I had been running on empty for the last few weeks and in particular the last few days. I didn’t think I could feel anything anymore, no sense of happiness or elation, no hint of apprehension or confusion had been detected for a while now. All I felt was depression, a dark, overbearing depression, like when the thunder clouds glide overhead, just awaiting the sign for everything to drop out from them.
The feeling of injustice as I sat there overwhelmed me, completely engulfed me and I began to feel an anger bubble up from within. Not enough to override the emotions of grief and pain, but enough to make me aware that it was there.
I had done far too much to be sat here. I had gone above and beyond what had been asked of me to be sat where I was. I had seen things, done things, that would have made this Captain make decent use of the bucket that was in the corner of the room, and keep him up in the night for weeks to come.
And none of it was my fault. None of it had been brought about by me, it was all because of someone else’s actions, each time. I had no reason to be feeling guilty, I had done nothing wrong.
But, then again, as I had learned over the last few weeks, everyone is guilty in a war, in one way or another. There is no escaping it. Everyone commits a crime, everyone does something that they morally shouldn’t, but it’s a war, so no one seems to mind too much.
He reiterated his question again, not so much in words this time, but with a forceful clearing of his throat, as if he was nudging me closer and closer to the precipice, lifting me up higher and higher above the parapet.
The room I was now occupying was dimly lit, and impossibly cold. It was okay for him, he was wrapped up nicely in his crisp, clean uniform, whereas I was still in my rags that bore frayed ends and endless holes. His uniform was freshly laundered whereas my garments were anything but.
I wheezed as I began taking deeper and longer breaths in. The moisture that had clung so professionally to the walls of the room, slowly made their attack on my chest, and I could feel my breathing becoming more laboured, for every hour that I continued to sit here.
Another involuntary sigh escaped from my lips, and I watched him as he physically turned his head away from the warm breath that I had just expelled, visibly appalled at the smell that seemed unbelievable from a human being. His nose began to curl upwards and he didn’t seem to have any control over the twitching it was making as the offensive on his nostrils continued. I made a mental note to sigh much more heavily next time.
I was all on my own. I felt like I had always had someone beside me, someone to share my burden, and if I didn’t, I knew that there would be someone around the corner willing to help. But this time, it was for real, this was real loneliness, real depravity. I had been a social outcast for the latest leg of my journey, kept completely isolated from everyone else with very little human contact.
I was completely alone, and I had changed beyond belief. I was now locked in my own mind, entertaining myself with being able to breathe on a man and make him feel physically unwell. I had changed so much I doubted my own mother would be able to recognise me, especially if she was to see me right now.
I didn’t even know if my mother knew I wa
s here, in fact, there was a possibility that she was dead herself. I hadn’t heard from her for months now, my one contact with her, letters, being stopped some time ago. She wouldn’t know if I was dead, captured or alive, it had been so long that she had heard from me that she probably assumed that, by now, I was dead.
If that was the case, she would be half right.
If she was to find out what I had done, what I had seen and where I was right now, I would be dead to her anyway. Her own son in a prison cell? Never.
I was dead to the world, I hadn’t existed for weeks, so why should I expect to be welcomed back with open arms after so long away? What made me anymore special than all the others?
I began to tap my bare, blistered feet on the sodden concrete to try and get some feeling back into them. The light splashing sound that I made as I did so was amusing to me, and I spent the next five minutes, creating different patterns to tap out onto the floor, to distract myself from the tempest of thoughts in my head. A carpet would have been a nice touch though.
So, did he want the short answer? Even that version of events would probably be far too long for him, by the way that he kept glancing at his wrist, he had an expensive dinner date with a Hollywood film star coming up, if the cheap cologne he had splashed himself with was anything to go by.
I wondered if he would wear the uniform he was in to the dinner, or whether he would feel the need to put a freshly laundered one on, now that he had been in the company of a vagabond like me. I hoped he did, I was enjoying all the extra inconvenience I was making for him.
He wore the uniform, but it didn’t fit him properly, because he hadn’t earned it yet. I was certain that Uncle Rupert would make sure he’d be able to add a medal ribbon to his chest before too long, but not without making sure that his little nephew was kept as far away from the business end of things as was possible.
I began to detest the figure who sat in front of me, expectantly waiting, pen in hand, ready to write down all the nitty gritty of what I was about to tell him. It infuriated me that he would get to wear his medals, he would show them off and yet, the people that had earned them, would never get to wear them.
Those men who had deserved the campaign medals, the gallantry medals that he would no doubt go on to steal, were lying face down in the mud in a foreign field that had now been overrun by the enemy. That was if they had been left with a face after they had been decimated by artillery and heavy machine gun fire.
Those men had died in farmhouses, on beaches, in forests, in fact anywhere that it was possible for a man to be found living, was also a place where a man could quite easily perish. The whole of France was now littered with bodies, some relatively intact, others not too dissimilar to a slab of beef.
But the Captain in front of me wouldn’t want to hear about that bit, he would almost completely disregard my rant about how practically everyone had abandoned us, left us to fend for ourselves with little direction or encouragement. He wouldn’t want to know about the bit where men, grown men, had sobbed and cried at the prospect of being captured or not seeing home again. He wouldn’t want to hear about the brain matter that had been splattered all over me as experienced soldiers would rather blow their brains out than carry on for a single second longer. He didn’t want to know that I had been laughed at and mocked by children who, a few months before, had cheered and whooped me on my way to war.
I quickly wiped the tears that had been bulging in the corner of my eyes and sniffed sharply. His small, pencil thin, quite pathetic moustache twitched to life just under his nose as he risked another look at his watch. He was almost late for his table reservation.
I wondered for how much longer my life would go on for. Sitting in that cell made me feel like it might go on forever, so, I just sat. And waited.
I wanted to make him late for his dinner reservation. Besides, I had nowhere else to go anyway.
I cleared my throat needlessly, it was so dry that I felt individual strands of my throat rip as I did so and, when I spoke, nothing more than a vague crackle managed to slip from my mouth.
He had heard what I had said though, he had been waiting so long for a response that his ears were trained like a bat’s, waiting for the slightest squeak so that he could begin furiously scribbling on his notepad.
He hadn’t liked what I had said. Suddenly, his chair shot backwards, and he sent it clattering into the nondescript wall behind him, as he launched himself arrogantly towards the door. I wondered whether he was so angry because of what I had said or that it merely confirmed that he would be staying here a while longer. The steel door noisily scraped its way along the floor, and his small, cocky shoes, tapped their way down the corridor.
I couldn’t understand why he was so angry at what I had said. I hadn’t eaten in days, I had to eat something, and my mouth was so dry that it was almost impossible for me to string a sentence together.
If he treated me okay, I would tell him what he wanted to know. In short, I had stolen, pillaged, attacked and even murdered to get myself here, and I would tell him everything if it was to get me out of here. Not like I had anywhere to go once I got out of here anyway, it would just be nice to feel free for a moment or two again.
I moved one bare foot over the other, itching away as best I could at the yellowing, slightly browned feet that I now stared down at. I began to feel more positive and, as I pushed my shoulders back, I used every ounce of my energy to try and feel optimistic, to look at the good things in my life right now.
I was alive, I was hopefully about to be fed and watered and soon, I would be let out.
I was glad that I had made him miss his dinner reservation, in fact, he was probably in his office right now as he cancelled the booking that he made and phoning his date. He wouldn’t be happy, but at least he was about to get something out of me that he would be able to take to Uncle Rupert proudly. Maybe he would even get another medal.
The lights continued to hum, incessantly.
2
As a child, I had loved the outdoors; I loved the sense of freedom, like there were no parameters on my existence, apart from so long as I got back home in time for my tea. I would spend hours outside with my older brother Bill, just walking and climbing or discovering somewhere new that neither of us had ever experienced before.
He was older than me, by about three years, which was close enough to still have plenty in common with him, but just about far enough away that meant it was always quite clear who was in charge. He had learnt how to read a map from our Grandfather, shortly before he died when I was only around seven years old. Bill passed down his fascinating knowledge to me, always holding it over me that he had taught me this incredible skill, no one else, and that it would always be something that I would need.
It was true that he had taught me the basics, I knew how to read a map and walk on a bearing, as long as it was on flat terrain and in an area I knew well. My real development came when he was shipped off to boarding school when he was at the age of thirteen. I taught myself how to navigate over rougher terrain, how to find myself when I had got deliberately lost and also, navigate in the dark.
My obsession with maps became so deeply ingrained in me that it was all I asked for when my birthday came around, my parents humouring me by getting maps for far flung places all around the South East of England.
It therefore only seemed right that I would further my obsession by joining the military, something that was heartily encouraged by my father and one that was preferable to the route Bill would eventually take and squander a few years at university.
“The Army is the way to go my boy…the British Army is the finest in the world, anyone who has made anything of himself always started his life in the army…never at one of these silly universities.”
My Dad was proud of what I was doing, you could tell in the way that he pushed his shoulders back and lifted his chin up slightly every time he spoke about it. He had graced the Army with his presence many years ago, and
he had even higher aspirations for me, higher than his rank of Captain anyway.
“Captain William Lewis, Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment,” he would be known to say, “that was me boys, the Queen’s Own,” he would declare, raising his eyebrows at the mention of royalty. “After Queen Victoria lads, the greatest monarch we’ve ever had. Quite the responsibility.”
He had seen service in the Great War years ago, invalided out after a gas attack which left him coughing up all sorts of mucus for the rest of his days. He did not bear a grudge however, it was all a part of war to him, and the German soldiers who had inflicted the injuries on him, were “merely doing their job.”
He was a fair man, my father, and his personality seemed to rub off on me in numerous ways. He was always calm and clear, a true leader of men and that was the situation I found myself in, shortly after starting my training on large vehicles and even the occasional tank.
I became the first to become labelled a PULC, a provisional unpaid lance corporal and consequently becoming earmarked as a potential officer. I was grateful for the recognition, not so much for the extra duties that I was apparently lucky to have. After passing a few officer selection boards and a stint at the Royal Military Academy, I became an officer, Second Lieutenant Alfred Lewis. My Dad couldn’t have been prouder.
I was soon posted to my active unit, the 4th Battalion Royal Tank Regiment, where I started to fall in to proper Army life and began to form some lasting, dependable friendships. Within a year, most of them would be dead and the others, I would never see again.
Having plenty of time to learn more and more, I began to command a two-man tank, the Matilda Mark I, a slow, ill-equipped tank that would have had better success if it was to pull barges and canal boats along the towpath.