The Last Boomerang

They make him sit across the narrow street, down the hill just a bit, away from the smoldering ashes and the feeble little one-lung pumper, its stream down to an occasional spray; somebody is fussing over him, in his craziness he can’t tell who, isn’t aware, doesn’t care, just oh my God the stink and the smoke and the smell oh shit oh shit oh shit--

Burned timbers, gasoline and rubber, insulation and garbage, kitchen grease and animal crap, it ‘s on his clothes, his jacket torn at the shoulder, on his hands sticky with--.Oh God--her blood--Oh God-- and he shakes as they help him up and they have to half-carry him and that hurts too and he starts to cry but he catches it in his throat but not before it hits his eyes and he can’t see where they are going with him but he can hear the cackle of the radiotelephone in the jeep and somehow he realizes that the crew is there and shit, this must be a dream, what the hell are they doing here and God it hurts and Oh God! her blood, there it is.

They are gentle with him, getting him in the back of the carryall, Hunley and Kerrigan insisting to the Military Police Sergeant Major that they will be able to care for him back at the hotel, the Sergeant Major distracted by the incessant hubris of the radio.  Dazed, totally unaware of the insults to his body from the fire or to his dignity, his trouser leg gone to the hip, he slouches and stares down at a crumpled paper cup by his foot, wondering what it is.  He doesn’t know, cannot think, cannot orient himself, cannot somehow, mercifully, understand the enormity of what is happening, what has happened, where he is.  He watches, stupidly, as the rest of them write things on paper and his last coherent words to himself, the last time his brain had rang up his consciousness with any kind of a message, were repeating and repeating in his head, and he could hear them but not interpret what they had meant.

How in the hell did she ever know about Boomerang?

The British Sapper jeep-driver in his blue beret is skeptical, he’s seen blokes in worse shape after drinking through their pay packets home in Leeds on a Friday night, but he realizes that it isn’t drink that makes this Yank, he thinks he’s a Yank, the others are, look like he’s got no bones at all and he wonders what the pack of them, Yanks here in Nick, have been up to with the fire and the explosions and all, but the Sergeant Major shoos him into the drivers seat and the tall white haired Yank guy seems to be in charge and he comes around to the left side and gets in and they get started.  There are light poles down and a lorry on fire at the bottom of the slope, nobody around, typical this time of night, wait a minute, it’s not all that late, bad night here though, jezus not even midnight, where the hell did them kids come from, never mind, it’s a right turn at the corner if he can get through the narrow slit of a street, jezus, there’s a friggin’ donkey.

In the back seat, newly oxygenated blood, fresh-made adrenalin, endomorphins of assorted shades and sources, liver bile and other bodily fluids under various pressures have hastily negotiated improvised agreements and working together, they are rousing their host over the threshold of consciousness and Lew is beginning to understand where they are and who he is with.  Where did the crew go?  Oh, just the officers, have the crew got a ride?  Where are they headed?  Where did you guys come from?  You all look awful, and the smell! how did you get here and where are we going Oh to the hotel I heard you tell the Limey kid and--.

He feels his heart catch at least it’s going he says to himself why did she have to die and Oh God all that we did last night and all the shit we had to put up with has all been for nothing and nothing and nothing Oh God why did she have to die and where the hell are we and Oh yeah I remember it all now and shit, shit, shit.

“Can you walk, Lew” Hunley had asked.

It takes a second for the processing, but the fluids are working hard and the machine is beginning to right itself and grab some kind of rhythm and he tries out his legs and knows he has two, but fifty percent of them hurt like hell but not so bad that he can’t wiggle himself out of the carryall and hold on to the door frame and lower himself to the gravel path along the driveway and Oh yeah, it’s the Acropole and I’m back and everybody is with me and let’s go inside and I guess I’ll be OK only--

“You going to be OK?”

“Yeah, Shipmate, thanks a lot.  I’m a little fuzzy,” he mumbles as they go up the steps into the lobby and there is this guy there.  British.

“My name is Roger Wingfield,” he begins. “We need to talk.”

He’s in his bedroom slippers and wears a cardigan sweater over one of those shirts made for detachable collars but there’s no collar on it and he has a pad and he has gray hair and he looks friendly enough.

My God, My God, they got her out but she was dead.  She can’t be dead.  My God, My God, and all the stuff in the package.   Get the stuff.  Get the stuff.  The stuff’s all burned up.  I saw it explode.  It’s gone.   And she’s dead.

Now what?