Free Armistice by Nick Stafford

the picture. I thought to shout but it wouldn’t have been quick enough—Dan would have had to turn—so I just took a chance and shot. Dan went down, and the other bloke, and I thought hell, I’ve shot them both, but Dan was all right, just a bit disgruntled because my bullet had passed through his trousers and just missed his, you know—”
    Philomena felt herself redden.
    â€œI told him that I hadn’t meant to do that—I was aiming for the edge of him, not there, between his … He swore a lot, didn’t he?”
    She smiled and nodded, afraid to speak in case she distracted Jonathan.
    â€œAnyway, they started lobbing more stuff our way so Dan joined me at the bottom of the crater and we got to know each other a bit better.”
    Philomena’s eyes started to fill up. She could see Dan and Jonathan together in the hole—could see it as if she were there—imagined exactly how Dan and Jonathan would have been together.
    Jonathan paused a second. “I can see that you’re crying, Philomena, but I’m just going to plow on,” he said.
    â€œThis isn’t really crying,” she muttered, taking out one of the cotton handkerchiefs she’d recently taken to carrying in duplicate at all times.
    â€œDan claimed that I’d ruined his best trousers and my reply was that there was a Chinese laundry around the corner—he could drop them in and pick them up before work; I’d pay. Then he wanted to know, because I was a captain whereas he was a second lieutenant, where we were or where we were supposed to be. I admitted that for some time I hadn’t had a fucking clue—excuse my French—a far from ideal situation, and he asked if I could see anything at all, through all the blood, and he reached out and wiped it from my forehead, like I was a child, and he was very, very concerned about me. He could break your heart, couldn’t he?”
    Philomena couldn’t speak. She felt full of liquid, full of tears, and she was afraid that if she started crying properly she wouldn’t be able to stop. She’d become a puddle on the floor, run off into the ground.
    â€œAnyway, shells were landing pretty close and getting closer. One threw a skull into our pit. It landed next to our heads. We saw it when we raised our faces from the earth. There were always bits of buried bodies being relocated by explosions. God knows how many times some people were interred. You could be buried on your side, blown up again, buried on the other side, ad infinitum.”
    â€œDan wrote to me about that skull,” Philomena interrupted.
    â€œWhat did he say?” asked Jonathan.
    â€œHe said you looked at it and asked if it had a message for anyone back home. He thought that was funny.”
    Jonathan swallowed hard. Philomena feared for a moment that she’d thrown him off course. But he swallowed hard again and picked up the thread of his story.
    â€œWe rummaged around the recent bodies in the pit and came up with a few usable bullets and loaded them into spare magazines. Dan told me the plan. ‘Right sir,’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘This is the plan, sir,’ he said. ‘Plan?’ ‘Yes, sir. Climb out of shell hole, crouch down, run like fuck, firing wildly.’ ‘Textbook, an excellent plan! I’ll try not to shoot you if you promise to try not to shoot me.’ And Dan said, ‘I promise to try not to shoot you, but if I do shoot you it will be by mistake and I apologize in advance.’
    â€œThe plan was executed. And that, more or less, is the basis of why I believe what I believe. My beliefs are based on my first impressions of Dan, particularly how he could rub people up the wrong way. I can see that you don’t understand what I’ve just said. But I have to ask you now, for something. If I tell you any more it can only be after you’ve given me your solemn oath that you will never, ever