The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [391]
“No, I won’t go back there and you can’t make me.”
I got up without a word and went to have a bath, trying to soak away the worries. Aornis, Landen, Goliath, the ChronoGuard and now Perkins’s and Snell’s murders here in the BookWorld; I’d need a bath the size of Windermere to soak those away. I had come to Caversham Heights to stay away from crisis and conflict—but they seemed to follow me around like a stray dodo.
I stayed in the bath long enough to need to top it up with hot water twice and, when I came out, found Gran sitting on the laundry basket outside the door.
“Ready?” she asked softly.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
I slept in my own bed—Gran said she would sit in the armchair and wake me if things looked as though they were getting out of hand. I stared at the ceiling, the gentle curve of the wooden paneling and the single domed ceiling light. I stayed awake for hours, long after Gran had fallen asleep and dropped her copy of Tristram Shandy on the floor. Night and sleep had once been a time of joyous reunion with Landen, a collection of moments that I treasured: tea and hot buttered crumpets, curled up in front of a crackling log fire, or golden moments on the beach, cavorting in slow motion as the sun went down. But no longer. With Aornis about, my memory was now a battleground. And with the whistle of an artillery shell, I was back where I least wanted to be—the Crimea.
“So there you are!” cried Aornis, grinning at me from her seat in the armored personnel carrier as the wounded were removed. I had returned from the lines to the forward dressing station where the disaster had generated a sustained and highly controlled panic. Cries of “Medic!” and swearing punctuated the air while less than three miles away we could still hear the sound of the Russian guns pummeling the remains of the Wessex Light Tank. Sergeant Tozer stepped from the back of the APC with his hand still inside the leg of a soldier as he tried to staunch the bleeding; another soldier blinded by splinters was jabbering on about some girl he had left back home in Bradford-on-Avon.
“You haven’t dreamt for a few nights,” said Aornis as we watched the casualties being unloaded. “Have you missed me?”
“Not even an atom,” I replied, adding, “Are we done?” to the medics unloading the APC.
“We’re done!” came back the reply, and with my foot I flicked the switch that raised the rear door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked a red-faced officer I didn’t recognize.
“To pick up the rest, sir!”
“The hell you are! We’re sending in Red Cross trucks under a flag of truce!”
It would take too long and we both knew it. I dropped back into the carrier, revved the engine and was soon heading back into the fray. The amount of dust thrown up might screen me—as long as the guns kept firing. Even so, I still felt the whine of a near miss, and once an explosion went off close by, the concussion shattering the glass in the instrument panel.
“Disobeying a direct order, Thursday?” said Aornis scathingly. “They’ll court-martial you!”
“But they didn’t. They gave me a medal instead.”
“But you didn’t go back for a gong, did you?”
“It was my duty. What do you want me to say?”
The noise grew louder as I drove towards the front line. I felt something large pluck at my vehicle and the roof opened up, revealing a shaft of sunlight in the dust that was curiously beautiful. The same unseen hand picked up the carrier and threw it in the air. It ran along on one track for a few yards and then fell back upright. The engine was still functioning, the controls still felt right; I carried on, oblivious to the damage. Only when I reached up for the wireless switch did I realize the roof had been partially blown off, and only later did I discover an inch-long gash in my chin.
“It was your duty, all right, Thursday, but it was not for the army, regiment, brigade or platoon—certainly not English interests in the Crimea. You went back for