Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (best short novels of all time txt) 📗

lips and cloud around him, wishing he could disappear within it. “One hundred and twenty men went out. Twenty-six were killed. Seventy-five wounded. Trust me. I’ve had years to do the math. That’s an eighty-four per cent failure rate.”

Molly sat unmoving, then without a word, she got up and went to the kitchen. He knew she was getting coffee, but it sounded like she was making extra noise to cover her sobs. When she returned, her cheeks were bright, but her eyes were clear. She set the coffee before them, then resumed her seat.

“I have more numbers for you, Max.” Her expression was set, and both men sat back to listen. “From what I’ve learned, the original C Force was made up of 1,985 men. Of those, two hundred and ninety-six were killed or unaccounted for between December tenth and Christmas Day. The rest were taken as POWs. I’ve had time to do the math on that, too. That is a hundred per cent failure rate,” she said. “And of those POWs, about five hundred had been wounded in battle. Then over two hundred and fifty died at the camps.” She lifted her chin, which quivered with anger. “When you said you never should have been sent there, you were absolutely right, Max.”

Max let the figures soak in. He had only known the ones from D Company, because Arnie had eventually filled him in. He’d said Cox was waiting for him as he ran off that field to safety, and tears were rolling down their sergeant’s face as he witnessed the devastation.

Ian gave a low whistle. “Those are sobering numbers,” he said. “So that’s when you and the others officially became prisoners of war.”

Max nodded once. “They tied us up and marched us to North Point Camp. I could barely walk. I’d been hit at the very beginning of the battle, when the Japanese had first invaded the island, and I’d doctored myself as best I could, but the second bullet at Stanley did me in. As we started to walk, my leg collapsed, and I went down. Arnie dropped to help me, and he was in a panic. The Japanese were yelling something at us, and Arnie kept screaming that I’d better get up or I was gonna get a bayonet in my gut. I looked around, and that’s exactly what they were doing.” He was back on that road, with the bodies of his friends falling, then screaming, then lying still. He could still smell the death, a thick tang in the air that burned. “Anyone falling by the side was getting stabbed then left behind. So I got up. I don’t remember doing it, but I did.”

“What happened with your leg?” she asked.

He looked up, startled. For a moment he’d forgotten where he was. He looked down at his leg, lost briefly in the wonder that it was wrapped safely in a trouser leg. They’d marched into Hong Kong that November, clean and starched in their regulation army shorts, but those had fallen apart over the years. By the time they’d finally been freed, they’d worn little more than bits of cloth. With all the heat and filth in Hong Kong, he’d never understood why infection hadn’t latched onto his leg and pulled him under.

“I told myself it was just a cut, but as you can tell by my less-than-nimble gait, I was wrong about that. I’m pretty sure the first bullet broke part of the bone off, and it’s still floating around in there. The second one went right through.”

“Is it all right now?”

“I still have it,” he said, putting out his cigarette.

Molly looked away, and he remembered her brother Mark. “I’m sorry, Moll. I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“It’s fine.” She paused, giving him a moment. Or was it she who needed that? “But I have to ask you about something else,” she said, her green eyes glittering with determination. “St. Stephen’s.”

He’d always known she would ask. How could she not? He’d written to her; she’d known he and Richie were in Hong Kong together. If anyone knew about what had happened to her brother, it would be him. And he did.

“I know about the massacre.” She tilted her head to the side, toward Ian. “Ian did the research for me, so I know what the Japanese did that day. And I know Richie was there, because they told us he died there. But I don’t know why he was in that hospital. Do you?”

When the survivors of the massacre had joined the rest of them at North Point Camp, the stories had leaked out a bit at a time, as if they were testing to see if it was safe to speak. Then, like a wound ripped open again, details had poured out of the men’s weeping mouths: the murders, the atrocities, the unthinkable evil that had rained down on that quiet, defenceless hospital on Christmas Day.

Max hadn’t wanted to hear the stories. He didn’t want to believe any of them. Especially after he combed the survivors’ faces and found Richie’s wasn’t among them. The guilt he’d felt for years after that day, the knowledge that he had personally put Richie in the face of danger, had never dissipated. Back in that terrible jungle, with the enemy all around, Richie had begged Max never to leave him, and yet he had.

“I sent Richie to St. Stephen’s Hospital,” he said, bracing for her reaction.

She paled, and Ian’s hand covered hers. “What? You?”

“He got caught in the initial invasion onto the island a week before. The same time I was shot. He was a mess.” He was back in the tunnel now, Richie’s blood black on his hands. His heart was beating so hard he could barely hold his hands still. “I… I had to amputate his arm in the field, and patch up his leg and face.”

Tears streamed from her eyes as her brother’s long past death suddenly came alive in her mind. He hated