New Title 1

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  “No!” I managed to say, in a more measured tone. “No, it wasn’t anything like that: I have a medic friend at Bastion’s field hospital; I got the information from him.”

  “I didn’t take you for a ghoul, Lee,” he said grimly.

  “Fuck you, Grant!” I snarled. “I have a friend who is just being operated on and I don’t know if he’s going to get through alive so just fucking get me there!”

  There was a short pause.

  “You’re talking about Hunter, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying not to let my throat close up.

  “Okay, Miss Venzi,” he said, in a more even tone. “I’ll see if I can pull some strings to get you there. But don’t call this number – and don’t ask me again.”

  “I won’t,” I barked into the phone.

  “Where are you staying?”

  I gave him the hotel’s address and hung up.

  I thought he’d try to help me, but he had other men to worry about – other casualties. I chewed on a nail, wondering who else I could call on.

  Inspiration struck: there was one more number I could try: Ches Peters – Sebastian’s best friend. A man whom I was pretty certain despised me.

  I did the math to work out the time difference: it was about seven o’clock in the evening in San Diego. He had two young kids, so I hoped he’d be home.

  The phone rang three times before it was answered.

  A child’s voice trilled down the line.

  “Hello, Peters’ residence. This is Ben Peters speaking.”

  “Hi, Ben. Can I talk to your daddy, please?”

  “He’s making popcorn,” said the little boy.

  “Could you get him for me? It’s important.”

  There was an angry huff, a short pause where I could hear muffled voices, and then I heard Ches come on the line.

  “Hello, who’s this?”

  “Ches, this is Lee… this is Caroline Venzi… I was Caroline Wilson and…”

  “I know who you are. What do you want?”

  His voice was cool, but full of unspoken contempt.

  “I need your help. Well, Mitch’s, I guess – I know he’s still in the Marines. I’d have called him direct but I don’t have his number.”

  I realized I was babbling: I needed to focus.

  “Ches, I’m calling from Afghanistan: Sebastian has been hurt. Pretty badly…”

  I had to hold the phone away from my face for a moment, stifling the choking sobs that bubbled up my throat.

  “How bad?” Ches whispered.

  “Bad. They’re taking him into surgery now. They might… they’re talking about amputating his right leg.”

  I heard Ches’s shocked curse.

  “He’s at the field hospital near Camp Leatherneck, but I’m stuck 300 miles away in Kabul, and without papers. I can’t get to him. I know you think I’m a first class bitch and that I ruined his life, but I’m begging you, Ches, begging you… please, if there’s anything you or Mitch can do to get me there. I’m pulling in every favor I can think of, using every contact. I’ll do anything. If you know anyone, anyone at all… Please, Ches, please…”

  “I’ll do what I can, Caroline,” he said in a stunned, quiet voice. “Give me the details.”

  I told him everything I knew, which wasn’t much. But it was more than most people would have known in the same circumstances: and it was thanks to David.

  I was sorely tempted to call my editor, but I suspected his immediate reaction would be to tell me to stay put until he got me on a flight home. He’d been shocked into silence when I’d told him the reason I was pulled out of Nowzad, and coming on top of what had happened to Liz, I didn’t know how much help he’d be. In fact I was pretty certain he’d try to block me getting back to Kandahar.

  Desperate as I was to get to Sebastian, I had to think; I couldn’t just charge in. It even crossed my mind to try and speak to Natalie Arnaud: she worked for the UN – she might have contacts. I decided I would wait until morning before I tried my riskier avenues. By then David or Grant might have made some wheels spin, and I was damn sure that Ches and Mitch would pull every string they could.

  I went back to my room, and packed up everything, ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

  When there was nothing left to do, when every last bit of fight and determination had been used up, I lay on the bed clutching Sebastian’s ring, and wept.

  They say there are no atheists in foxholes. I say there are no atheists when you’re begging God to keep alive the person you love.

  At exactly 5.57 am I woke up and swore.

  Damn it! Why hadn’t I thought of this last night? This was why it was important not to go to pieces in an emergency.

  I checked my phone and sent up a silent prayer, thanking the saints of telecommunications.

  “Sergeant Benson, this is Lee Venzi – you were my bodyguard last week.”

  I could tell from his fuzzy voice that he’d been asleep when I rang.

  “Miss Venzi?”

  “I’m sorry I woke you up, and I’m sorry it’s so early, but I need your help. I’m in Kabul…”

  “Kabul?”

  “Yes, I’m back at the Mustafa Hotel. I got evac-ed from Leatherneck… it’s a long story. Look, I’ve just found that my… fiancé has been injured and I have to get back out there. Can you help me?”

  He sounded wide awake now.

  “I’m real sorry to hear that, Miss Venzi, but you’ll have to go through the usual channels: have your newspaper contact the Corps’ Division of Public Affairs and…”

  “I don’t have time for that! Listen to me! He’s hurt really badly – I don’t know if he’ll… I have to get there. Please, sergeant… he’s one of your own – he’s a United States Marine.”

  There was a silence at the end of the line. Then he said, “Give me three hours.”

  Sergeant Benson was as good as his word.

  I called Ches to let him know I was on the move, and promised to get in touch as soon as I had any further news.

  A hundred-and-fifty minutes later, I was on my way back to Lashkar Gah. Sergeant Benson had moved heaven and earth to get me where I needed to be. I would never forget his kindness.

  To say David was surprised to see me would be a vast understatement. But he didn’t waste any time asking me stupid questions either.

  As soon as he saw me, he said, “He’s still alive, Caroline.”

  “Thank God.”

  Those brief words flooded through me, and some of the weight on my chest that had made it hurt to breathe, eased just a little.

  He led me through a complex of tents and portable huts, and into what looked like the ICU department of a modern, urban hospital.

  “He’s in here.”

  The room was small and brightly lit. Sebastian lay on a hospital bed with a number of tubes and monitors attached to him. His left arm was elevated and he was breathing on a ventilator, his chest rising and falling in time with the machine. It was the only sign he was alive: he was so still and pale.

  Below his waist, he was covered with a thin blanket which rose in a mound over the cage that protected his right leg.

  Thank God – they’d saved his leg.

  A man in desert utilities was standing over Sebastian. At first I thought he was a doctor, but then I heard what he was saying, the rhythmical cadence of words repeated too many times.

  “O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need…”

  I recognized the prayer for the sick.

  “We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit and relieve thy sick servant Sebastian Hunter, for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon him with the eyes of thy mercy; comfort him with a sense of thy goodness; preserve him from the temptations of the enemy; and give him patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore him to health, and enable him to lead the residue of his life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally Sebastian may dwell with thee in life eve
rlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  “Amen,” I echoed, softly.

  The man turned around, and I wasn’t surprised to see that he was wearing the white collar of a priest.

  I crossed myself.

  “Thank you, Padre.”

  “Is he a friend of yours?”

  I nodded. “He’s my fiancé,” I said, quietly.

  I couldn’t see David’s face, but I heard his sudden intake of breath behind me.

  The priest patted my arm.

  “God hears all prayers, my child. And your young man is very strong.”

  He gave me a small smile, nodded at David, and left the room.

  “You’re marrying him?” asked David, his voice oddly strained. “You didn’t say that when I saw you before in Kabul. You said you’d only just met again.”

  I looked up sharply. “I wasn’t lying, David. This is… very new.”

  “I’m sorry…” he began. Then he cleared his throat and started again.

  “They’ve managed to save the leg for now, but there’s still some doubt about whether it’s viable. The next few days will be critical. There was dirt in the shrapnel and he’s contracted Acinetobacter baumannii – it’s a common infection out here. We’re treating it with antibiotics but…” he sighed. “And he’s been put into a medically-induced coma: we were worried about brain swelling as he received a shockwave from the bomb… That’s quite typical with these sorts of injuries.”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “I’m sorry, Caroline,” he said again. “Well, if you need anything…”

  Hesitantly, David rested his hand on my shoulder, then turned and left me alone with my grief.

  I picked up Sebastian’s hand and held it in my own. The fingers felt cold, so I held them to my mouth and blew on them softly, trying to heat them with my breath, just as he had done, only three weeks before in Chamonix.

  Dear God: that seemed a lifetime ago. He’d been so alive, so vibrant, so full of hope, and now...

  I held his hand to my cheek and closed my eyes.

  “Come back to me, Sebastian. Please, tesoro, you have to fight. You’ve always been so strong, don’t give up now; don’t give up on us. I need you. Come back to me. Please, come back to me.”

  The ventilator rose and fell, his chest rose and fell, but Sebastian’s eyes remained closed.

  I talked to him all day: telling him about the bungalow, and the way the ocean trembled with light in the summer sun, and the way the sky seemed to reach long fingers down to the waves in a storm, spray mingling with rain. I told him about Alice’s kindness and humor; about Jenna’s fieriness; and the way Nicole was always trying to set me up on dates – but that I didn’t need her to do that anymore. And I told him what Ches had said to me on the telephone.

  “He told me to kick your butt right out of this hospital bed, Sebastian. You promised him you’d go surfing in California after this tour; a fact that you completely forgot to mention to me, I might add. Do you want to have our honeymoon in California, tesoro? Because I don’t care where we have it. Anywhere you like, my love. Sebastian, can you hear me? I love you so much – we have our whole lives ahead of us. I’ll go anywhere, do anything to be with you. Just please wake up, tesoro.”

  A medic came past and checked the machine’s readouts, before methodically pushing some more meds into the IV bag that was suspended next to the bed.

  “You a friend of his, ma’am?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Perhaps you can help me then? We found a letter on him when he was brought in, but the name isn’t anyone on his emergency contact list. We just held onto it, kinda hoping we could find someone to give it to. Do you know a ‘Carolina Hunter’ ma’am? We figured it was some relative of his, but so far we can’t trace her.”

  I gasped slightly, then nodded. “Yes, I know her. I’ll make sure she gets it.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  He reached into a locker next to Sebastian’s bed and pulled out a muddy envelope. When he handed it to me, I realized it wasn’t covered in dirt, but blood – Sebastian’s blood. The medic shrugged his apology, and walked away to check on his next patient.

  My hands shook as I tore open the envelope. There was a single sheet of lined paper with a ragged edge inside, probably torn from a notebook. One side contained a short message in Sebastian’s careful handwriting.

  Caro, my love,

  Just writing these words makes me happier than I can remember being for a very long time – ten years, in fact.

  I’m not one for words – I leave that to you – my beautiful, talented Caro. But we’ve had the news we were waiting for and soon we’ll be heading out. I hope you never read this letter, but if you do, it means I’ve gone on to the next big adventure.

  Knowing that you are in the world and wearing my ring, makes me the happiest man alive, and the last few weeks have been the best and happiest of my whole life.

  Be happy, Caro, because that’s what you deserve.

  I love you, I have always loved you, and wherever I go after this world, I will always love you. Sempre e per sempre.

  Sebastian

  I clutched his letter to my chest, trying to find a way to fill the aching void. I couldn’t understand why my heart was still beating.

  I gave up trying to be strong. I lay my head next to his hand, and my tears soaked into the crisp, white sheet.

  My love was slipping away from me, and there was nothing I could do.

  The night passed and I sat staring at Sebastian’s face, memorizing every line and angle: the softness of his cheeks, now covered with a fine, light brown stubble; the full, sensual lips, distorted by the breathing tube that had been placed into his throat; the strong, straight nose; the wide forehead; the beautiful symmetry of his cheekbones. But his lovely eyes, the windows to his sweet soul, were hidden.

  I whispered my secrets to him, all my desires and fears, hoping that in some way he knew that I was with him. I ran my fingers along the back of his hand and up his forearm, tracing the faint veins, knowing that they were still pumping blood through his body, and that the fight wasn’t over.

  David returned at some point, although whether it was day or night by then, I couldn’t tell.

  “Caroline, perhaps you should try and get some sleep. I’ve arranged for you to have a cot-bed in the doctors’ lounge. Well, it’s not much of a lounge, more of a shed really.”

  “Thank you, David. That’s very kind of you. Maybe later.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully.

  “He’s holding on, Caroline. He’s strong, but… they’re trying to decide whether to medivac him to Germany. It just depends on… whether he’s stable enough to make the journey.”

  I stared up at him.

  “Why are you being so nice to me, David? I always thought you must hate me after… everything that happened.”

  He looked surprised, then rubbed a hand tiredly across his cheeks.

  “I tried to hate you. I thought I did, for a while, but I couldn’t really. I knew it was my fault.”

  I blinked with surprise, amazed by his words.

  “Why did you think that? I was the one who… had the affair.”

  His eyes closed briefly and when he opened them again, he seemed to have made a decision.

  “You were so full of life, Caroline, and I loved you so much. I tried so hard to hold onto you, but the harder I tried to hold on, the more you slipped away from me. I ended up crushing you. I was so terrified you’d see through me… I did everything I could to stifle you. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself. I will regret that to my dying day.”

  Then he gestured towards Sebastian. “He brought you back to life.”

  I hung my head, humbled by his admission and his apology, remembering all his cruelty and bullying. And remembering, too, his new kindness in my hour of need.

  “I’m so sorry, David. For everything that happened between us. For what I did to you. I n
ever meant to hurt you. But… I fell in love.”

  “I know,” he said, softly. “I just wish it had been with me.”

  He smiled sadly, and walked away.

  The days and nights began to blur together. If it hadn’t been for David, bringing me food or insisting that I slept, I don’t know how I would have coped.