The shout resounded around the camp, breaking the quiet of the night. It hovered above the tent for a few long seconds.
A loud bellow followed.
“Will you just die and shut your damn mouth, for everyone’s sake!”
The words were atrocious, cruel and unthinkable.
Not in a military camp. There, the injured person on the point of death cried out in distress and every time, the better-off soldiers screamed at them to shut up so they could get some sleep. They needed a good night’s sleep to wage war and win fights. This had been the rule for all time.
In their bed on the floor, the injured person moved weakly, trying to regain their strength. They had moved so quickly as they woke up that the wound on their abdomen had reopened. Blood was already soaking through the bandages. The pain of it made them wince.
The images from the nightmare, ephemeral and terribly frightening, continued to plague them as though projected onto the fabric of the tent. The person closed their eyes and bit their tongue. They could only wait. Wait for the pain, all the pain, to get better or take them from this world. They could not cry out, for they didn’t know what the soldiers were capable of.
Someone cleared their throat at the entrance of the tent like the sound of a bear scratching. It was the man with the gray beard. He did that every time he came into the tent to announce himself. He pulled aside the tent opening and entered, carrying a beaker of steaming liquid. The day before he’d been wearing armor, but today he was just in a simple tunic tied with a belt. This made him seem much less terrifying, but he was still impressive given his imposing height.
Bradley.
He said his name was Bradley.
“Don’t pay any attention to them,” he said with a hint of annoyance. “They’re drunk, but they’re not bad guys. They’re just exhausted.”
The war. The massacre. The murders. Sure, they had every reason to be exhausted, thought the injured person bitterly. They were beasts, savage animals of blood and violence. Even the fiercest of beasts needed rest.
“How do you feel?” asked Bradley.
The injured person sat in obstinate silence in their bed. How did they feel? Rage and terror were boiling within.
He hadn’t hurt them at all. In fact, he’d done everything he could to save their life. These last three days, he had cleaned their wounds and stitched them back together. He had even helped them to eat when they couldn’t do it for themselves. All the same, this camp was filled with warriors and English banners by the dozen, with their threatening lion heads, so the mistrust would not disappear so easily.
Bradley put the beaker on the floor and pointed to the bandage.
“You opened up your stitches again,” he said in a soft tone.
Red droplets were soaking through the gray fabric.
He moved his enormous, thin, calloused hands forwards. Warrior’s hands. Hands made for killing, not for healing. The injured person wondered how many men, women, and children’s lives those hands had taken. The person flinched. Like always.
“It’s okay,” whispered Bradley, “I have to make sure you didn’t completely pull the stitches out and then clean them, or it will get infected.”
He had the strength of a bear, but his movements were soft and cautious without being imprecise. He gently pulled the bandage apart and dabbed a little hot water where the dried blood had stuck to the fabric.
“The stitches have held, that’s something.”
He cleaned the flesh. The injured person tried not to cry or jump up.
“I know it’s been difficult,” said Bradley. “I mean, everything that’s happened.”
“No, you don’t.”
The words were barely a voice, just a whisper.
He had no idea how difficult it was. No. He couldn’t know. The injured person was sure of that. They chose to stare at Bradley for a few seconds. In the weak light of the lantern placed on a wooden stump, his face was impassive, but his eyes shone with rage.
“You’re wrong, but I won’t tell you my life story,” said the man.
In any case, the injured person didn’t want to hear it.
“You have to be careful,” he continued, “extremely careful.”
He glanced around the tent. Three other injured souls were also there, but they were so badly hurt that they were unconscious. They would surely die in a day or two. Three at the most.
Bradley hadn’t chosen this tent by accident.
He paused to find the right words.
“It’s a question of life or death. No one must notice you for the moment.”
The English soldier had never been so talkative. During his last visits, he had barely spoken a few words. Not today. Because of what had happened.
He began his lecture, not in the tone of a sermon but with a hint of worry.
“What you did last night was careless. Very dangerous, even.”
The injured person averted their eyes to the darkness of the tent.
“Both of us could have been killed.”
That would have been better, thought the injured person. Preferable to all of this.
In the middle of the previous night, they had regained enough strength after waking up from their comatose state after two days. They waited for Bradley to fall asleep and for the patrol to compete their rounds before they sprung from the tent to escape. The cold was biting on their skin. They were only wearing a simple shirt and pants as thin as a sheet, and worse, they had bare feet.
Despite the shivers that made their teeth chatter, they’d used the cover of darkness to dodge between the tents. Twice, they’d almost been seen and had barely made it to the hastily constructed palisade, completely out of breath.
Once they were out of the camp, their heartbeat racing as though they were already galloping across the surrounding fields dimly lit by the moonlight, they had run in the grass with no concern for the stones they stepped on or the bristles that caught their legs. They held their side with their hand as the wound made them suffer. Thinking they’d gotten far enough away from the camp and at the end of their strength, they stopped by a small body of water for a break, breathing in the air of freedom. Their surroundings were in complete darkness. No villages or lights. Only the oppressive shadow of the city that finally stopped smoking on the other side of the Tweed.
“Who goes there?” shouted someone as a sword crossed their path.
It was an English patrolman.
When the injured person was spotted, they thought about running, but soon realized they wouldn’t get very far. The last of their strength would be gone in a few steps.
They were too far away for their face to be seen and recognized.
Another, more authoritative voice came across the splashing of the water.
“It’s nothing, I can vouch for him.”
It was Bradley. He had come to stand next to the injured person who had turned their face slightly into the shadows on purpose. As he saw the soldier coming closer, he whispered that he wasn’t one of his own men.
“It’s me, Bradley. Second in command.”
As he closed the distance, the soldier squinted before giving a salute.
“Commander. My apologies, I didn’t know he was with you. My mission is to—”
“What’s your name?”
“Pete, commander.”
“I know your mission, Pete, and you’re doing it very well.”
“No one normally leaves the camp.”
The soldier couldn’t hide a note of suspicion in his voice.
“He’s an injured soldier. He hallucinated and ran.”
“Injured?”
Bradley’s lie hung by a thread. No commander would have run after a simple wounded soldier.
“What, don’t you understand the word? I’m taking him back to camp. You’d do best to continue your patrol.”
Pete gave a quick salute and, fearing rebuttal, let them go. Bradley led the injured one by the shoulder to support them and they began to walk back. They had barely made it three yards when the soldier seemed to come to his senses.
“Wait a minute! My report!”
He jogged to catch up with them.
“They’ll ask me for the soldier’s name for my reports!”
As he reached them, he pulled the injured soldier by the arm to face him and then saw them very clearly in the moonlight.
“Huh? But that’s no soldier, that’s…”
A sword slit his throat.
The injured person would remember Pete’s expression of surprise and terror forever.
The commander hadn’t hesitated for a second. He got rid of the body—the injured person wasn’t sure how, since they were frozen in fear from what they’d just witnessed—and they returned to the camp. Neither one of them opened their mouths on the way back.
“Are you listening to me?” continued Bradley, dragging the injured person out of their memories. “Next time—and there better not be a next time—I won’t be able to save you.”
The injured person suddenly wanted to scream. To scream so loud that every single soldier in the camp would order them to shut up.
They felt trapped.
Berwick.
They hadn’t even been able to say goodbye to Berwick and everything it held.
Everything they had lost.
After he’d finished with the bandages, Bradley readjusted the dressing that covered the injured person’s right wrist, which wasn’t covering an injury.
“Never take it off,” he reminded them. “No one can see what’s underneath.”
Defeated, the wounded person withdrew into themselves in an icy silence.
Bradley only patted their shoulder. He tried to find the words, but nothing came to mind. After pulling the covers back over their thin body, he left the tent and returned to join the soldiers who were still awake.
The injured person tried to return to sleep. There was nothing else to do anyway. They prayed they wouldn’t be plunged once more into nightmares of the past.