An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Ghosts (TV 2019) Rating: Mature Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: The Captain/Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain & Kitty (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain & Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019), Lieutenant Havers & Original Female Character(s), Lieutenant Havers & Original Male Character(s), Lieutenant Havers & everyone (ghosts 2019) Characters: Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain (Ghosts TV 2019), Kitty (Ghosts TV 2019), Mike (Ghosts TV 2019), Alison (Ghosts TV 2019), Robin (Ghosts TV 2019), Pat Butcher (Ghosts TV 2019), Thomas Thorne (Ghosts TV 2019), Jemima (Ghosts TV 2019), Mick the Plague Victim (Ghosts TV 2019), Cartwright (Ghosts TV 2019), Humphrey Bone's Head, Julian Fawcett, Ghost Pigeon (Ghosts TV 2019), Lady Fanny Button Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Suicide, Isolation, Lieutenant Havers is a Ghost, Existential Crisis, Lieutenant Havers is not okay, The Captain Loves Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019), POV Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019), (for the first chapter), POV Multiple, (second chapter), Yearning, Period-Typical Homophobia, Self-Loathing, Coming Out, Lieutenant Havers Has a Sister (Ghosts TV 2019), Reunions, dreaming of a better life, references to Vera Lynne, Day Dreaming, Bittersweet Reunion, PTSD, Shell Shock, World War II, Angst Summary:
When Lieutenant Havers — no, Havers was gone — When Anthony went down the abandoned air raid shelter and closed the hatch, he thought he knew what he was doing. Yet, having woken up after he pulled the trigger, and having not been found for 80 years, he rather came to regret his choice.
Unsure of how much time has passed, he dreams of life, of childhood, of the life that could have been, and of the man that to him was an angel.
When Alison opens the hatch to the shelter 80 years later to hide one of mike’s new hobbies, Anthony discovers that perhaps he is not so alone after all.
Haver’s head throbbed as his eyes blinked open, his face laid flat against the cold concrete floor. It took a moment for the throbbing to subside, and an additional two minutes for his stomach to stop churning in a way that had him retching and heaving up whatever drink he had in his system. He pushed himself up, fumbling to find the wall of the cramped shelter, his eyes fuzzy and straining against the light, and something cold trickling down from his right temple and down to his cheek, before settling on the edge of his jaw.
He lifted his hand to wipe it off, pulling his fingers back to investigate for himself, to find thick crimson staring back at him, before dissipating into dust and returning to a trickle down his face. He paused, a deep set sense of numbness settling in where any other emotion should have been — confusion, shock, despair, anything, yet he felt nothing in particular.
The numbness was short lived, as soon as he arose and turned to face his previous position, he saw himself staring back, and then he felt sick again.
There he lay, crumpled on the floor of Button House’s long emptied air-raid shelter deep beneath the main house, one arm outstretched, his revolver having been expelled from his grip. His eyes hadn’t even had time to close, half-lidded and dry, completely devoid of the usual light he proudly carried in them, a light that had charmed someone he kept so dear.
His uniform was remarkably clean, considering the state of the wall beside him, only part of the right sleeve and some small portions of his blazer were blotted with small dots of red. His medals were laid out neatly by his feet. All things considered, he didn’t feel as if he deserved them, not of he was going to die in the way he wanted. The way only a coward would want. He was no major, no hero, not anymore. He stopped being a hero the second he surrendered. Now he was nothing, just Anthony. No standing, no honours, just a name.
Next to his medals, lay his open journal. He at least hoped that when he was found, the other men would respect his wishes for a burial — despite everything he had so openly confessed in pages prior to — and put his plot next to James’. The only man who would ever make him feel like he did, who would reciprocate the feelings. Gone. He died trying to tell Havers — Anthony — what he had already known since the day they met, surrounded by the people who would hate him for it. James was braver than he’d ever be. He never fought on the front lines, but he was Anthony’s hero, now and forever. He desperately yearned to be buried next to him, by his side one last time.
He had left everything neat. He was already causing people pain, didn’t need to leave them with a bigger mess to clean that necessary.
The light bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered, and Anthony looked up to the concrete slab covering the entrance to the shelter. He hadn’t wanted this. He hadn’t wanted this at all. But at least it was quiet, he liked the quiet.
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He hadn’t expected the slab to move, more so that he would pass through it or that perhaps he’d see some bright light and be whisked up into the heavens, but he absolutely had thought that he’d be able to leave this room. Perhaps when someone came to find him he’d be able to exit out behind them, walk around the rest of the house and the grounds, perhaps he could even go wherever he wanted? See Africa in its sun-stunned, sand-smothered glory without the taint of foreign blood staining foreign sand.
However the slab seemed to not wish for him to move through it, let alone shift it. Stubborn bugger. If he listened closely, he could hear the vague sound of voices conversing on the other side, perhaps it would not be too long until the slab was shifted by a fellow — formerly fellow— member of the army, likely having been drawn in by the sound of the gunshot. He doesn’t think he’ll stay down here long enough to see their reaction, the sting of rejection from anyone was something that had always had his stomach twisting at the very thought.
And that was just from imagining the shame of them discovering him in this state, let alone the thought of them reading his note, the rest of his journal, of his yearning for a certain someone from his post on the front lines. It was all well and good writing what he had written and leaving it out like that when he thought that he would not be here to witness the aftermath, whisked away somewhere else, or simply ceasing to exist altogether, but now…
He stepped off the ladder, ripping his stare away from that sordid book and leaning against the wall. A shooting pain ripped through his chest, and he felt his breathing quicken. All of a sudden he wasn’t in the shelter anymore, he was at his first week of grammar school, and the boys from the upper sixth had cornered him, pushing him against the wall, and getting up in his face. Pansy, Fairy, Queer, Homosexual, every name under the sun came to mind as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He had done well to forget that experience, and every other one like it that had occurred consistently until those particular boys had left later that year, yet in that moment he felt exactly how he had almost 30 years prior every day he stepped through those gates.
It was then that he crumpled against the wall and brought his hands to his face, rubbing at tears that were yet to fall. He felt exactly like that eleven year old boy. He wanted to be at peace, he wanted to rest.
He wanted his mum.
His poor mother that he had left at home, who would be faced with soldiers knocking at the door of his childhood cottage having to break the news that despite the war being over, her son had died in uniform. His father would have to comfort her, and would have to live with the fact that his son was not only a coward, a pansy who had been harbouring feelings for his CO, and who had ended his own life because he couldn’t stand to live a life away from his own disturbed fantasies with the man.
God, what would his father think? His father who had fought in a war of his own for king and country, who had woken up screaming in the night, and who had been so proud of Anthony when he came home two weeks ago sporting a blazer decorated with medals. His father had always cared for him, reassured him when the other boys had been cruel, but the thought of him thinking any less of him, of knowing what he really was filled him with dread. He had truly let his father down, in so many ways.
And his sister. Anne, who had never been apart from him since the day they were born, who had taught him about her favourite birds, had sat and sketched with him, had threatened the upper sixth boys at his school and kicked in their shins when they laughed in her face. Anne who had let him stay with her, her husband and their two children since he returned from the front. Anne who had bragged to her children about their ‘brave’ and ‘heroic’ uncle who had fought the Nazis, who had gone away to protect them, then had come back and left them all over again. Anne who had lost a brother. A friend.
William, his nephew, who was so happy when Anthony had told him that he had named a top secret operation after him that he jumped up and down on the spot for a solid two minutes. When Anthony had originally returned, William had proudly presented an award he had received for his art, and had sat in the back garden to sketch birds with his uncle, while begging for stories of North Africa, and whose face lit up with an obviously jealous flush when Anthony mentioned that he had met Vera Lynn during her tour. He had requested every detail about the experience, and stammered slightly when he saw the photo that his uncle produced of himself with the singer.
Anthony would be lying if he said he hadn’t felt guilty in that moment. He could only talk about how he enjoyed the singing, the camaraderie, about how she seemed perfectly lovely in conversation and about how she was truly an inspiring beacon of hope. How much of an angel she was, both in voice and company. He wished he could share William’s enthusiasm when it came to his interest, but he just couldn’t find it in himself to even mumble a lie. He wished he could speak about his love for James, about how he had planned out every aspect of the life that could be together, about the man that had changed his life. But he couldn’t. So instead, he talked of a woman he had met while at Button House. A slightly older woman — only by 5 years — with short hair, previously dark but with flashes of silver streaking through, with breathtaking blue eyes and the most beautiful smile he had ever seen (“yes, even more beautiful than Mrs Lynn’s”).
He said with longing etched into his expression how he planned to find ‘her’ after the upcoming celebration at his former post, and how he would love to start a life somewhere nice with ‘her’. William said he was lucky to have someone waiting for him, and that he hoped that he would have a girl like that someday. Anthony just nodded, then went back to his sketching. He had found himself sketching James by the time William looked over, and simply explained that he was looking forward to reuniting with his old CO and a ‘good friend’. As he sat curled into himself, he couldn’t help but let out a sob. He felt like he had completely failed.
Catherine had come out quite quickly after that, and had looked at his sketching over his shoulder whilst playing with his hair. She never said much, she was always the quiet type, but she was kind and the kind of person whose smile could light up a room. He always let her play with his hair, his ties, she was a very tactile person, always exploring with he hands, even as she almost reached ten years old she still reached up to his face to play with his features whenever he held her on his hip.
And it was only now dawning on him that he would never be able to feel that again. Never have her hands trying in vain to braid his hair, never be able to sit on the back step with William and draw with him, never be able to hug his sister again, or to have her teasing filling his ear as he sat down for tea beside her. He would never again eat his mother’s cooking, never smile gratefully as he spooned steamed vegetables and cottage pie into his mouth, and he would never be able to sit with his father, both nursing a glass of whiskey whilst listening to the evening radio, telling stories of his time in the army, of what he had seen, of his odd (yet charming) CO from his post at button house. He would never hear his father tell him he was proud of him again.
He had no right to mourn, no, he chose this. He chose to die, he chose to be a coward and leave them, so why was he the one mourning? He knew what he was doing when he came down here, he knew he would be leaving them, to be at peace with a man he had loved so dearly, so what right did he have to sit there and mourn?
He gradually lifted his gaze up once more, staring his corpse in the eyes again. He hated the man that looked back.
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Tired. Why was he tired? How on earth did that work? He surely hadn’t been here for that long that he should be tired. The other men hadn’t found him yet, and he was sure he could still hear them on the other side of the slab, a large group of them, in fact. Though, a lot of them were rather old, and others had sustained injuries to their limbs in battle, so perhaps they were simply trying to find someone who could move the slab? Yes, that must have been it.
Anthony had always been rational — at least he thought so before he did this, (which he was rather starting to regret, actually) — and he knew that he would be found sooner or later. Even if he wasn’t, someone would surely notice he was missing, and report it to the authorities, at which point they would search the house and find him (and that blasted sappy note). He had found himself wondering more and more what the rules of this place were; he had been able to climb the ladder but when he had tried to use it for support so he could stand, he passed right through it as if it wasn’t even there. He was perfectly able to pass through a shelf, but had walked straight into the wall right after, though he didn’t suppose there was anything but soil and stone beyond the walls of the shelter, so that may have been it.
The chattering above continued, and he began to feel annoyance pool in his gut. How long did it take to open the shelter, truly? Minutes pass and he finally gives in, shouting up at the voices. “Oh for heaven’s sake!” He hadn’t been this desperate since the front, since he was trapped under that rubble, since his face had been marred and slashed by wire and rotted wood, shrapnel engrained into his cheekbone, still sizing against his blood. Since he could feel the bodies of his comrades, his friends, pressed against him, and all he could do was scream out in agony.
The chattering continued, undisturbed by Anthony’s frustration, which soon mixed with dread as he realised he recognised none of the voices.
He felt sick again, no one had heard the shot, no one knew what had happened. He was going to be stuck down here for god knows how long. With that thing in the corner staring back at him.
He stood from the position he had settled into after he had finished his little experiments, and climbed the ladder once more, this time desperately pounding on the slab. It produced no noise, only serving as canon fodder for his fists. After a particularly hard push, he found himself falling back, landing on the floor with a huff.
He daren’t look behind him, lest he see himself staring back again.
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Anthony knew the stench of death well. It was a stench that permeated everywhere he had gone on the front, whether in his own dug out sketching, sat on the benches eating a tasteless tin of pea soup in the evening, or preparing for battle, the stench was everywhere. He had so looked forward to escaping that smell. The sweet, sickly, damp stench that had dominated his life for years finally being gone from his life had been one of the first things he noticed when he had come home, and he almost cried at the smell of the countryside taking its place.
He had lost track of time since he had died. He wasn’t even sure he had ever been trying to keep track in the first place, there was nothing he would be able to use to do so, aside from one thing, but he really didn’t want to think of that. He wsn’t that desperate yet. He wasn’t s desperate as to look at that corner to tell the time.
Instead, he kept his back turned to it, to himself, and had pulled out the sketchbook from his inside pocket, glad to see that it had come with him. If he couldn’t keep track of time, he might as well try to pass some, after all, he would be found soon, the smell was rather noticeable. Then again, the shelter had been designed to keep out gas, too, so there as no real guarantee that he would be found, in actual fact he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be found anymore.
No, no, that was not what he needed to think about, he just needed to keep his eyes focussed on the sketch, to just keep etching in details with his worn pencil, ignoring everything else. Keep a stiff upper lip and await rescue, that’s what his training had taught him, what he had learned on the front lines, there was no use in panicking now, he was sure someone would find him soon.
The face that had taken form beneath his pencil was far too familiar, familiar in a way that made him feel sick, made him want to cry — to mourn — for the life that never could have been, yet the life he had prayed for day after day. Graphite eyes bore into his own, soft and kind and creasing at the corners in a way that could only indicate a genuine smile. A smile that had always been reserved for him, and only him. Never that show off Cartwright, never the other soldiers, just him. Just Anthony.
Purity. That’s the word that came to mind when Anthony thought about that smile. The purity that ebbed from James’ form as he shifted forwards to bounce on his toes during his endearing rambles about something or other; the purity that came from soft glances across the mess hall, or enamoured stares across a cricket pitch; that purity, the type written about in tales of old, painted about in renaissance paintings, was the purity that looked up at him from the page. The back of the book bulged slightly under his fingers, loose papers threatening to spill across his lap as he sat there, each containing secret sketches from his time in combat. Each containing the image of purity.
For half a second — only for half a second — the world was serene. And Anthony felt at peace.
———————————————
When submerged into darkness, when the sense of sight is rendered completely useless, the other senses take over, working together to bridge the gap that is left behind. Anthony had learned this before. With a bandage over both eyes, he had heard louder than ever the screams of pain men were capable of producing; he had smelled the stench of blood, of gas, of damp wood and khaki and dirt mingling with death in a trench as he sat like a lame duck. He had tasted the dry bitterness of the contents of his rations as they were haphazardly shovelled into his mouth by a fellow soldier, wincing as he desperately tried to choke them down under the north-African heat; He had felt the raw edges of his uniform rub against every point of contact, every blister his boots left behind, red, swollen, weeping against the woollen socks and the leather boots that did nothing to help against the heat. Hell on earth. That’s what it was.
Yet, after all that, he was convinced that this was worse.
No way of telling how much time had passed since the filament in the bulb had gone, no songs sang to make the healing process more bearable, no tales or talks of camaraderie and patriotism or bloody battles for king and country to keep him company. Just darkness. Just silence. Sometimes the occasional hum of voices overhead. The dust beneath his ghostly fingers made no sound as he thumbed at it; no satisfying accumulation awaited on his digits when he lifted his hand to the other and rubbed them together.
He lifted the sketchbook from his lap, still open on the page of James — His James. He ran his thumb across the lines, his nerves picking up every detail, every artificial wrinkle that he had added to the page, trying desperately to visualise his features once more. He had allowed his mind to wander more frequently, no longer restraining himself as he used to, seeing no point in adhering to the rules of the living while he sat down here, alone, rotting.
He imagined life as he wanted it, as he had done many times before. A nice seaside cottage far away from any other — perhaps Cornwall or Weymouth — not too close to any cliff, sheltered behind a bank so that the wind would not be so strong as to blow away the washing he had hung out on the line earlier that day. The smell of fresh bread would waft through the house, baked ready for fresh lunchtime sandwiches cut specifically into two triangles, the way James preferred them. He would take Ham and cheese, with a good scoop of pickle to top it off, and Anthony (ever the sweet tooth) would have strawberry jam heaped onto his, with a nice potato salad on the side, and perhaps some Smith’s crisps as well.
He and James would sit in the back garden, which would be populated with — but not overcrowded by — plenty of beds of flowers, a few vegetable patches neatly arranged towards the back, and a birdbath and feeder. A bench would sit nearby, where he and James would eat, though occasionally they would choose to take lunch in the rocking chairs on the patio, and sit with their lunch as the birds came for their own.
They would forgo church on Sunday, neither feeling particularly inclined to religion, and instead walk along the beach, collecting shells and sea glass that James could hoard in a drawer when they got home, one dusted lightly with sand that stubbornly remained after a rinse in the kitchen sink and engrained itself into the old wood. Then it would be a roast. Anthony didn’t mind what they ate, though James couldn’t stand lamb — he had mentioned on Sunday in the mess that the thought of slaughtering such an innocent little baby had made him slightly nauseous since his favourite lamb had been used for meat when he was six (“I spent a lot of time on my grandparent’s farm, you see. Poor creatures.I thought about it for days.”) Then it would be a lazy day, listening to the radio, James with his paper, Anthony sneakily sketching him from across the room, James getting flustered once he peaked over the top of the paper.
Then, finally, they would fall into bed together in the evening, curled into each other for warmth and comfort, breath mingling as they slept close. Perfect. Happy. As if no one else in the world existed.
The real world yanked Anthony from his fantasy. The defunct bulb had fallen from its perch on the ceiling, shattering on the concrete floor with a sharp crack. And suddenly, he was alone again, his face cold, no breath on his cheek, just the never-ending trickle of blood from his temple, the smooth graphite marks beneath his fingers a reminder of what he would never have. Perhaps James, a pure soul — the purest, to Anthony — was in heaven, or wherever others went. Perhaps James was in a cottage somewhere after this, awaiting Anthony’s arrival, forever hopeful that he might walk in. He was clearly so desperate and adoring when they were alive, he was sure James could hardly wait for Anthony to join him, wherever he was.
As he leant over and emptied the restless contents of his stomach, he realised that he had never been more sorry to disappoint.
———————————
Sleep. That was all Anthony seemed to do these days. Wake up, stare into the dark, perhaps at a wall, perhaps at his long-deceased body, then fall right back asleep again. Back to the seaside, back to James. Being able to wake up was a burden, and he quickly understood why he had so longed for death.
In sleep he was with James, occasionally his own family, in that back garden sketching again, but usually with James, somewhere the shame could never reach them.
Sometimes he was a boy, standing on the edge of a property he didn’t not recognise, watching a boy not that much older than him — no more than five years — tend to the animals, or helping with the harvest, sometimes assisting a much older man in strapping a horse up to a plough when the elder’s hands were obviously failing him.
Anthony was sometimes a teen, sometimes being beaten and awoken early by the boys in the upper sixth, other times he was sat sketching by a fountain that was all too familiar, waiting for his father to be done with the shopping. Sketching a lady he vaguely remembered, then a young couple he had seen frequenting the confectionary stall at the market, Edith and Walter if he had remembered correctly. Edith had always come over to see what he was doing, even paid him a tuppence for one of his sketches once she had noticed him, and a sixpence for a portrait of the two of them. He wondered if the two of them had kept it. Thinking about it, it may have been the hardest he ever worked on a sketch, and the couple’s encouragement had certainly helped his passion. He wondered how they were, if they had asked his mother about him.
Thinking too hard about that made him feel sick again.
Things were often easier in the dreams where he was a young boy. Able to charm his way into virtually any social circle, a nice young lad who was the ideal son for his family. Talented in art, good in his new school, many friends, and very few enemies — “You can’t befriend them all, darling. And you wouldn’t want to be friends with that sort anyway, would you?” His mother would say as she wiped the blood off his nose and scrubbed the mud from his shirt. He remembered it being a lot for an eleven year old.
Sometimes he dreamt of that summer, when his father had been sent off to fight, the spark that ignited in Anthony seeing his father in uniform. Honour, Pride, Valour, the clash of khaki against delicate pale-blue upholstery. His father had been so proud to serve his country, to serve the king, to serve those he kept closest to him, and to keep his family safe. Anthony wanted to be like him, just like him. Never more has he wanted to be exactly like someone else than in that moment seeing his father stood in the living room, or seeing him wave as he strode down the driveway, facing the threat of death head on, challenging, daring.
He would dream of helping the soldiers that passed through his village in the two years after, of them challenging him to little races, obviously letting him win, now he thought about it. He dreamed of them letting him try some of their ration packs, and of the face he made when he tasted it surrounded by their booming laughter. He dreamed of receiving his father’s letters, and of writing back asking about what he was doing, anxiously waiting for either the next letter or the knock at the door. He dreamed of one of the soldiers letting him hold his rifle, before quickly getting scolded by a commanding officer, and in that moment he realised how truly young those soldiers had been. Some only 4 years older than him towards the end of the war.
He had wished he could have done more — he said as much to the soldiers — but at the end of the day, he was far too young. The guilt ate away at him some night, he would go and cry to his mother that he wanted to help, wanted to do more than to deliver rations around the village, to do more than stay at home. He wanted to be fighting, he wanted to be brave, he wanted to be honourable. His mother was having none of it, she refused to listen to her barely thirteen-year-old son wish to be sent to die. He was needed here and that was final.
He dreamed of the summer fading to Autumn, of hums of peace, of the ‘um’s and ‘ah’s of whether it was true, and as the last red leaf fell from its perch on high, the armistice sounded, and war was over.
The war was finally over.
———————————————
Anthony must have dreamed a thousand lifetimes. His bones ached from stillness, from a cruel rigour mortis that had settled into the only part of him that still lived on. He never moved anymore, just obeyed a simple cycle.
Wake up, trace his thumb over those kind graphite eyes and cross-hatched moustache, feel the slow, wet drip of blood down his face, then simply close his eyes and allow himself to die once more, drifting off to an artificial heaven.
He no longer dreamed of childhood, boyish memories long since discarded in favour of false promises of warmth, of comfort, of acceptance. James waited for him in sleep once more, sometimes memories of button house, of tea in the morning, soft smiles behind porcelain mugs between discussions of operations, of plans, and of wellbeing. Other times he simply laid beside him, Anthony couldn’t see him, but he knew he was there, the short, stifled sighs and stammering emerging from the darkness like the voice of an angel.
Vera Lynne again. Sometimes they were dancing to Vera Lynn in James’ office, curtains wide open, challenging anyone to say something, basking in each other’s presence, and in the late evening glow that enveloped the room. Sometimes he was in the mess hall, smiling and laughing with other officers and other soldiers, Vera Lynn’s heavenly voice humming and crackling from the radio — though only one person’s voice was truly heavenly to Anthony — only for his smile to drop moments later when a joke was made about their captain. About James.
The men used to say it was very ‘noble’ of him to stand up for James when no one else would — though he didn’t care much for their opinion. He always responded that he was their superior officer, that they should respect him just as much, if not more than Anthony did, that they had all surely had worse COs than James. The mere mention of which had some of the other’s shuddering as Anthony simply sat back and took a long, smug sip of his drink, one of the younger lads smacking his shoulder, saying he’ll have nightmares after being reminded of Captain Something-Or-Other from his previous post.
James usually sat alone in the mess if he sat there at all, he wasn’t particularly social most days and often opted to take his meals in his office, often working until his food had turned into a cold, soggy, inedible mush and a film had formed on the surface of his tea. Anthony, however, preferred to be social, to keep himself in the others’ good graces, to make them like him. Mainly because he was their first Lieutenant, he was who they would go to if they needed anything, whether it be advice, a request for leave that they didn’t want to talk to the CO about or to get tips on cricket following his rather impressive play against RAF Dunham Marsh. But there was another reason, one that he kept in the back of his mind so as not to think about it, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth and a sinking feeling in his stomach whenever it reared its ugly head.
He needed them to like him. He needed to be liked because if he was liked, he wasn’t cornered against a wall being towered over, he wasn’t wiping blood from his nose, breath heaving and hissing against his throat as he tried to catch it and stop those pathetic wheezes from being ripped from his chest. If people liked him then he wasn’t cornered. Unlikely to be accused. He wasn’t a homosexual, he was Havers, a soldier, well respected, a sheep in wolf’s clothing whenever the topic of love was even briefly mentioned, baring his false fangs as much as he could stand.
“It’s rather worrying, that they look like regular men, isn’t it?” Another man — Smith, he thinks — had said one evening.
Cartwright had muttered back through a mouthful of potatoes, “They don’t, you can tell from a mile away. They’re nothing like us.”
Anthony kept his head down, shovelling the dry mash into his mouth as quickly as possible so he could get the bally hell out of there.
“What do you think, Sir?” God, he was about to shove his fork down Smith’s throat.
Havers — not Anthony, this moment required Havers — simply swallowed his last bite of food, expression cold and hardened, before standing up and preparing to leave. “You know, I don’t even think they’re worth that much thought.”
It felt wrong, prickly, like a weight in his stomach as he cleared off his plate and left for his duties, a weight that had found its way there age eleven and had settled for the better part of twenty-five years. He had cried a lot when he first truly thought about it, the way his cheeks would heat up when his friend would pat him on the shoulder, or when they would chase each other through the village playing some version of some game they were convinced they had invented. He wanted so badly to be normal, to be the kind of boy his parents would want to be seen with, would want to show photos of off to relatives, not the kind that his parents would redirect away from whenever he was brought up.
He buried it, that weight, that lump of lead that had made itself so at home in his stomach that it practically never left. He became so used to living with it that he barely even noticed it was there by a certain point, used to the way it weighed him down, pinning his eyes shut and his body to the mattress, the way it weighed his brain down with a lack of ambition that was downright pathetic, the way the lump would migrate to his throat and force ugly tears from his eyes that were buried in cotton and goose feather as soon as they emerged.
He carried on for as long as he could, allowing the lump to settle and seethe like a cancer that had become far too at home in his body. He worked hard, despite not having the drive, he smiled though he felt neutral as anything most days, and he put in as much effort as would get him promoted to sergeant. His joints ached, his head throbbed constantly from lack of sleep and the exertion of crying, he was pale and sickly-looking with dark circles under his eyes and he found himself having to drag himself out of bed with only the promise of seeming fine to everybody else, of seeming like the kind of man people would like, people would be proud of.
He had collapsed in the hall at work three and a half weeks before his twenty-third birthday, and had been home ill up until. He couldn’t keep food down, could barely drink anything but warm water with salt and sugar, and could hardly move from bed aside from for basic functions. He just laid there. Unfeeling, staring at a spot on the wall, sometimes through the gaps in the yellow curtains of his childhood bedroom where a nightingale would perch on the exterior, staring in at him curiously as it chirped. Then he would sleep, until his mother brought him soup and bread, told him to get it down him and that it would do him some good, then he’d be sick again, apologise to his mother, sip some water, and sleep again.
Then it was his birthday, late morning, perhaps just after midday, and his mother had come in to check on him. He hummed weakly in response, yet instead of closing the door, or insisting he come down and sit in the living room with her and his father, she walked over and sat beside him. She didn’t say much to begin with, just leaned over and rubbed his back through the thick duvet, her face betraying the fact that she was clearly deep in thought. “Anthony… what’s wrong, dear?”
“I’m ill, mother.”
“No, other than that.” His eyes flicked up to her, then back to the floor as he thought of a response, but she resumed before he could find the words, “Anthony, you can’t- I know something is wrong, dear, please just tell me. I want to know. I need to know.”
He protested, his lips staying sealed firmly shut as he looked at a suddenly very interesting split in the wood of his bedside table, but his mother held her ground, heels dug in deep while her hand continued to rub his back. They stayed like that, in a silence that was tense yet strangely warm and comfortable with nothing but the sound of lunch being prepared downstairs and the sight of the dust floating, suspended in a sunbeam, as Anthony warred within himself.
He was wrong, flawed, broken in a way that couldn’t be fixed, that he himself had tried to force out of his nature more than once, yet he had failed. And now, his mother knew, she had sniffed it out, she knew something was wrong, she had said it herself, wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He was wrong, he was so wrong, everything about him was wrong, branded defective by one flawed characteristic, telling his mother wouldn’t fix that, she couldn’t see that the boy she had raised was so horrid and awful and depraved, what on earth would that do to her? He couldn’t do that to her, he couldn’t dare be that selfish, not to his own mother.
A shallow gasp ripped through the silence, spluttering breath following suit as it caught in his throat. He sat up, eyes swelling with tears and his face twisting in a way that it had not in a long time, and fell forward into his mother’s arms. He couldn’t look her in the eye, he never could with decisions like these, decisions to say something stupid that would ruin everything, but he opened his mouth and allow the words to tumble out, not giving himself the chance to think, just to speak.
He didn’t even realise he had stopped talking, it had just…happened. Once again, the sound of plates clacking and the kettle hissing over the stove permeated through the floor. Anthony’s embrace of his mother only tightened as the silence stretched on. This was his last hug with her, in his mind, and he was going to make it count.
The shouting. Anthony had expected shouting, lots of shouting. He’d expected the walls to shake from the volume and for his ears to be left ringing painfully as he collected his things and left. Though it never came.
Words were spoken, questions asked and answered, tales of past fancies shared and silent, contemplative nods given followed by short periods of quiet. After a few minutes of one of these periods, she had stood, fetched some clothing from his drawers, and told him to come down to lunch and to have some cake.
While Anthony dressed he couldn’t help but feel on edge, like the other shoe could drop at any moment, like he was still in danger. He had given his blessing for his mother to tell his father and sister while he got ready, he couldn’t stand to do that again, but perhaps that was a mistake. Now he just felt as if he were a coward, hiding in his room while he made his mother do the work.
He sat on his bed for a few minutes longer than he should have, he should have just got it over with, looking back he didn’t know what he was so afraid of. His father was always kind and his sister had never been one to judge. His hands shook as he pushed off the soft mattress and started out the door to his bedroom before making his way down the stairs, avoiding the creaky step three-from-the-top and running his index along the crack in the banister as always. Nothing was truly that different.
He had walked into the kitchen, meeting his father’s gaze as he sat down at the table looking in much better health than the past few weeks, though still by no doubt pale and ever so thin. His sister, Anne, had sat next to him, making some joke about how he didn’t think he was going to get out of blowing the candles out together that easily, did he? He gave a halfhearted smile, lopsided and lukewarm, and before he knew it she was embracing him, arms wrapped around his shoulders like a vice and mumbling something about him still being her brother, no matter what.
It was nice. Comfortable. Safe. He felt safe. Safer than he had felt in a long time. And after all that, after blowing out his and Anne’s candles, their parents smiling at them both as if they were still their little, fragile, precious twin children, Anthony had felt happy. Truly, trulyhappy.
And yet, after the warm feeling subsided, after the edges of his memory blurred and warped as he was dragged away from his family, his happiness, the cold concrete floor of the cellar and the torturous trickle of blood down his face was waiting for him.
———————————————
Anthony was rather sick of dreaming. He was rather sick of everything when he really thought about it.
He was sick of waiting in this hell-hole, of the stench of his own rotting flesh that had long since gone stale and musty, of the sound of those voices just out of reach above his head, sick of the stiffness in his joints and especially sick of the fact that every so often through the relative silence, he could have sworn that he heard James’ voice.
He was tired, he was so tired, but he had slept quite enough, he was sick of that too if he was honest. Sleeping, he had done so much sleeping he thought he might as well just sleep forever, no point in waking up if all you are going to do is sleep anyway. What’s even the point of being here if all he was going to do was sleep? There wasn’t one! So he might just stay the bally hell awake!
“FUCK!” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots, before throwing whatever was in the other. His sketchbook. Open on James’ sketch. The one with the photo of James tucked amongst the leaves and the sketch that had brought him so much comfort over however long he had been down there. Something not unlike a sob caught in his throat, frustrated and distressed like a caged animal, before it stopped itself in its tracks. Suddenly the left breast of his blazer had started to feel quite full, and when he reached inside he felt around and found it.
He collapsed back, clutching the worn leather to his chest as he felt through the leaves for those familiar indents in the paper left by his pencil. Yet he found none. None past what he had finished whilst on the front or when he was back at home. His sketches of James, the ones he was too afraid to make in life, sketches of how he remembered him before he died, gone. All of them, his favourite, that he had run his hand over so many times he didn’t doubt the amount of graphite that likely covered his fingertips had long since turned them black, gone.
The air was thick and choking, he couldn’t breathe, yet he was breathing far too much. His lungs seemed to shake with every breath he took, his stomach lurching with every exhale as he went numb. He gives up. whatever this is? It wins. He’s done. He’s done in a way that dying again would be far too little to make up for, even if he remained that way for good. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to feel this, he didn’t want to feel.
He wanted to go home, to go to sleep. He wanted to go to his mother’s house and collapse into her arms and have her tell him its all going to be ok, to help her cook shepherd’s pie for the family, swing his niece and nephew about in the air, then go to bed and to wake up, having known he went happily.
He did not want this. He was miserable. Miserable in a way he had only been when he was almost twenty-three. Miserable in a way that seeped into his bones and his eyes and made him too heavy to move, to think, to hope it will all get better. Miserable in a way that didn’t make sense to his nature, that made his soul cringe in discomfort. Miserable in a way that made him give up all over again.
So in that moment, he simply laid there, and accepted that he would be miserable.
————————————
Voices.
Anthony had long since filtered out most voices. Those from above had been filtered out long ago. There had been other sounds of course. Drilling was the main one that had pulled him from his trance, only to infinitely piss him off for the weeks that it went on. There had been a vague sound of what sounded like some odd kind of pulse once after the drilling had ceased, which had bothered him even more, only for the drilling to persist again after it had stopped, which as annoying to no end. But after that there had been nothing much, and Anthony had gone back to lying there thinking of nothing.
Until now.
There were footsteps above the slab that covered the entrance accompanied by voices. Three of them, if he could pick them apart correctly.
Someone walking across the slab was nothing special, it happened frequently, and as Anthony remembers you needed to walk over it to get to the boiler, so he wasn’t too surprised to hear more than one person walking over it repeatedly. He simply decided he would ignore it, allowing his eyes to fully gloss over and for his mind to wander back to nothing again.
Then it broke through the block. The sound of something shifting, of concrete-on-concrete just beyond his five-o’clock. He sat up swiftly, scarpering to his feet as something new began to well in his chest. Hope. Someone was going to find him-
Oh god, someone was going to find him. Someone was going to read the journal he had left out, someone was going to read his last words, words that he dedicated to his Captain, to his James, and then signed off with his name like a fool. He hadn’t realised how completely ok he was with the note never seeing the light of day as he had been, and now he couldn’t help but feel nothing but panic.
The scraping seemed more persistent now, whoever was attempting to pull up the slab was certainly putting some bally good effort into it, he’d give them that, but it didn’t help in quelling his sudden cowardice.
Except it wasn’t sudden. He had always been a bit of a coward. He always ran from everything, the boys in the upper sixth; his feelings; the words he longed to say to his superior but could never quite be brave enough to speak; the remnants of war that played in his head; facing a life without James in it, to the point where he had done this to himself in an effort to run away forever.
His mind calmed, thoughts slowing to a halt as he made his way over to the entrance and felt for the ladder. One foot after the other, he made his way up to the sound of scraping and waited, ready to face this head on.
The slab finally shifted, and a rush of cool air hit his face. He heard someone, two people he thought, grimace. As he held his face up to the gap in between slabs, a dazzling, bright white light hit his left eye, and for the first time in however long it had been since the last time, he could take a deep breath and smile.
