The Last Flight. Chapter 20

We ate in silence at first. The chicken was delicious, cooked to perfection and the fresh salad was just what we needed on such a warm evening. The girls had made some fresh Lemonade with water that had been kept in the refrigerator “Karen?” I realised that my dad was speaking to me. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was miles away,” I answered. “I was just asking how you are getting on,” he said. “Getting on?” I queried. “Yes, with your leg and nightmares and so on.” He seemed a little puzzled that I hadn’t understood. “Oh yes, I see.” I paused. “I’m sorry,” I apologised again, “I was a little preoccupied. I had a strange dream last night and it is slowly coming back to me.” “Ah, I see,” he said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “So nothing has changed then…” “Oh yes, it has,” I looked at Pascale and smiled, “For the first time, last night, I slept without waking. Although I dreamed, I was no longer petrified. The dream was strange and I felt anxiety but not great fear. Pascale looked after me.” I added the final sentence as I smiled in appreciation toward her. She smiled back. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. Again I glanced at Pascale who was still looking at me but with eagerness now and expectation. “Perhaps,” I began, “I am not sure…” Françoise put her hand on my forearm. “Do not rush into it if you are not yet ready,” she said. I thought for a while. “No, it is fine,” I conceded eventually, “It is probably best to let it out and there is no-one else in the world whom I trust more than you all.” I began to recount the dream from the beginning and as I went on, every little detail returned. When I ended the part about my mum and the apologies to all those people whose names I could see, Françoise interrupted me. “You know, Karen,” she began, “There is nothing at all sinister in your dream. It is not unusual for survivors to feel guilty about not dying with all those who did not survive. The feeling stems from your fears that you didn’t do enough to help them.” “But what if I didn’t, Françoise, what if I had done more instead of bahis siteleri just trying to open doors?” “What could you have done, Sweetheart?” my father asked, “Without the doors being opened you could all have perished. You said yourself, there was a strong smell of fuel and the engine had been ablaze. What if the leaking fuel had ignited whilst you tried to dress wounds or administer other forms of treatment? Then no-one would have got out. You saved the lives of ten people. You almost lost your own life anyway in getting those people out. You have nothing, and I mean nothing at all, to be regretful for!” I sighed. I knew he was right but something inside me just wouldn’t let it go. “Mum said that I had saved them, that just because their time was not yet come, the Reaper could still have taken them.” “Ah yes, your mother,” Françoise continued, “You have had a very lonely life since she died. It is only natural that you would be thinking of her and there was most definitely nothing you could have done to prevent her death, that was war, Cherie!” “No, I know but even so, I have dreamed of her often.” “I would be surprised if you hadn’t,” came the simple reply. “And that is all it is, Sweetheart, a dream. Your mind is still trying to make sense of it all.” My father offered his opinion. There was a moment as we all retracted into our own thoughts. “There was something else though,” I continued, still wanting to make sense of it, “Something I really don’t understand. The part of the dream that troubles me more than anything.” I told them about the man who fell into the fissure and the voices. “I could not see his face clearly,” I said, “But I could read his name on the gravestone.” “Karen, you said one of the passengers was not a nice man, maybe it was your subconscious wishing him to Hell.” “He was not a passenger.” I whispered as I looked at my father who was looking intently at me. “Did you know him?” Pascale asked. I looked around at the four expectant faces and nodded, slowly. “Yes, I knew him.” I said quietly. No-one spoke. canlı bahis siteleri They all waited patiently and I knew they wanted to know who he was but I was afraid. I didn’t know of what but something was holding me back. It was a if I might learn something that I didn’t want to hear. I lowered my eyes to the table and whispered his name in a barely audible voice. As the words left my lips I looked up at my dad. His face was white and his eyes were wide open. “H… Harry… Simmonds?” he finally repeated. I nodded in affirmation. “The boy who…?” Pascale began then stopped, remembering her promise. “The boy who stole your virginity.” My father stated somewhat shakily. I looked up suddenly! “You knew? How?” I asked, shocked to the core. He didn’t answer. I looked at Françoise but she just sat quietly, as though it was no surprise to her and said nothing. “Dad! Who told you, how did you know, was it Mum? She told me not to tell you in case you…” I stopped as a wave of fear swept over me. He looked at Françoise who nodded gently. I think you had better prepare yourself, Sweetheart,” he said, looking back at me but not daring to meet my gaze. “I have something to tell you that you will not like.” “Oh my Lord, Dad! What have you done?” I whispered with my hand to my mouth. My heart was pounding now and I could hardly breathe. Silence. “Tell me!” I said slowly, holding my breath. When he began to speak, he had a faraway look in his eyes as the memories came back to him. “Well, firstly,” he began, “I lied to you about losing my memory. I always knew who I was.” I opened my mouth to speak but Françoise squeezed my arm and shook her head, stopping me and allowing him to move on. “Before the attack on the German Panzer group, my regiment was reinforced with some new recruits. All young and inexperienced but full of enthusiasm. The few of us left who had been through the fighting from the beginning, tried to instil some caution into them, to make them understand that the enemy were not harmless and that it was not going to be canlı bahis an easy task to push them back to Germany. One boy in particular, Harry Simmonds, knew me as a neighbour but saw me as a drunken coward and wasn’t afraid to remind me when I tried to teach him not to be too gung-ho.” “You lied to me?” I struggled to get the words out, my mouth and throat suddenly bone dry, “After all that has happened, you lied to me?” I turned to Françoise and glared at her, feeling my heart breaking as the one person I trusted seemed to be keeping things from me. “And you knew about it?” I said slowly, shaking now, “And you said nothing?” She squeezed my forearm firmly. “Let your father tell his story, Karen, wait until he is finished before you make judgement.” I turned back to him and stared hard at his face. I could see the anguish as he waited patiently so I listened, trembling inside. “Your mother never said a word about what happened to you those few years before. As I said, Simmonds was a young recruit who had joined us from training. He was cocky, knew it all. I tried my best to get him to be a little less certain of his abilities, to make him realise that the enemy were very real and not yet beaten, who would try to kill him at every opportunity they had but he wouldn’t listen. Although I was a corporal he just treated me with contempt. He always delighted in calling me an old drunk, in telling me how useless I was and when I threatened to charge him he would just say, ‘go on then, lets see what they would think of you when I tell ’em’. In the end, I gave up. Let him take a bullet I would think. He would soon learn… if he survived.” He paused to take a drink and I looked at the faces of the three women near me. Dominique and Pascale were staring and listening intently and Françoise was watching me. I had a feeling she already knew all about what my dad was saying but how, I had no idea. At last, he continued with his tale. “Somehow, even with all his stupid bravado he managed to avoid being hit, time after time and always he would taunt me. Then one night, we were attacked by a panzer division. They had us pinned down in a small town and I found myself alone with Simmonds, trapped in a house on the edge of a forest, separated from the others and a Tiger tank outside.