Once I Was A Soldier Read online

  Once I Was A Soldier

  Daniel Kemp

  Copyright (C) 2017 Daniel Kemp

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2017 by Creativia

  Published 2017 by Creativia

  Cover art by Cover Mint

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  Table of Contents

  Other Work By This Author

  Prologue

  Part One: By The Wayside Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two: Stones Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Three: Thorny Ground Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter… The number that comes after twelve

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Four: Fertility Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Other Work By This Author

  The Desolate Garden

  Percy Crow

  The Secret

  Novellas

  A Shudder From Heaven

  Why?

  A Collection Of Three Stories

  Reasons

  Three Children's Stories

  Teddy And Tilly's Travels

  Prologue

  A Thursday in late November 1994

  I'm in a cage, but it's not a cage that you or anyone else would recognise. The door, beside which I sit, is not locked and nor do the two windows have bars; nonetheless escape is impossible. Escape will always be impossible for me. The room is spacious, painted a motley cream with its workaday appearance intensified by the featureless hard wooden settles fixed to three walls and the unrelated magazines scattered untidily along their lengths. There is a policewoman sitting opposite me who every now and again looks up from her chosen reading material and stares as though I'm an oddity in an exhibition. I stare back. It's all I can do, other than think. I'm thinking now!

  I'm not reading. My nurse is reading. She's calm enough to, whereas I'm not. I'm not sitting on those benches but in a soft chair of my own. I have no choice where to sit. There are no chains attached to me and although I find every movement a debilitating strain I want to jump through one of those closed windows and run freely, as fast and as far as I can from what awaits me on the other side of that ugly, brown painted door.

  The door creaked opened once and a young woman wearing a pink-striped pinafore offered tea. I refused that offer. Now, I'm beginning to regret that. My throat is dry, but apart from my answering a cursory 'are you okay, dear?' from the nameless policewoman and an 'are we all right regarding the toilet?' from my nurse, we have not spoken a single word to each other in the hour we have sat together.

  Some of the glances they throw in my direction appear pitying, whilst in others I'm sure I've detected elements of fear. I guess I must look a little frightening with my face still slightly bruised and my head as bald as a baby's backside. I wanted to wear a wig but I was told it would not be 'desirable' in the circumstances. The circumstances of what exactly? I asked. My question was never answered. Not many that I've asked in the last two weeks have been, particularly the ones I asked of those voices in my head. They are loud and incessant. I am trying to ignore them, but I can't. If I could identify where in my head they're hiding, then perhaps I'd stand a chance. There are too many shadowy corners up there to search. They sedate me, not the voices, no, they try their best to keep me awake. No, it's the nurses that sedate me. There are noises in the corridor beyond the door, not distinct, just noises. It's only noises that I must cling on to in trying to make sense of what happened. I don't want to be here.

  Soon I will be called for by name and asked to give account of what brings me to this place. What name shall I give? Should I say—I'm Melissa Iverson, a figure of fun or, I'm Melissa Iverson, an object of pity? Would it be more correct to say—I'm Private Iverson and once I was a soldier, but never was I brave!

  There is no morality to be found in evil.

  But to recognise that which is truly evil one must forget the rules of morality.

  D. Kemp

  Part One

  By The Wayside

  I am the winter's cold. I am the stars at night.

  Earthly stones overshadow me and I thirst for light.

  I struggle to survive and I'm too weak for the fight.

  My growth is so stunted that I'll not stretch in height.

  Part Two

  Stones

  There's no depth to my feelings. I'm shallow and vain.

  I'll flourish until there is no more to gain.

  My resolve grows weaker as I feel it drain,

  As people shun me, no longer pitying my shame.

  Part Three

  Thorny Ground

  I'm swamped by others who crowd me out.

  My voice is too feeble, no one hears me shout.

  Life is all around me, but I'm suffering from drought.

  I want to be noticed, but I'm racked by doubt.

  Part Four

  Fertility

  I am the blue sky of summer. I am the moon that shines.

  I light the path to the table on which one dines.

  I'm as mighty as a stallion and I'm as strong as a vine.

  If you help me ripen then I'll become your wine.

  Part One: By The Wayside

  Chapter One

  Two Years Earlier In November 1992

  When Margret Elizabeth Iverson passed suddenly away her husband, Albert, quickly descended into a darkness of sorrow from which he never recovered. The medical diagnosis, as stated on his death certificate sixteen days after his wife had left him, did not recognise grief as the reason for his demise. It identified a weak heart as the primary cause, initially inflicted when he was five years of age and suffered rheumatic fever. The fact that his heart failure happened so soon after Margret's death was said to be nothing but a coincidence. Melissa, their only living child, disagreed with that view. She checked the bathroom cabinet where Albert kept his medication the day after his death.

  There was almost half a month's supply of blood-thinning tablets along with his diabetic and sundry medication which she found odd, as it was she who had arranged the collection of his usual twenty-eight-day prescription from the town's chemist; exactly twenty-three days ago. There should only have been five days' supply left, she said silently to herself, before loudly adding, “D
addy,” said with tears wheeling in her eyes, “how could you do this to me?” knowing full well that no answer could come from the private ambulance in which he'd been taken from Iverson Hall and there was no one else who could supply an answer.

  * * *

  The Iversons had enjoyed their wealthy status since Melissa's great-great-grandfather developed the successful use of a cylindrical wrought iron tunnelling device and then the linings used inside those tunnels that were beginning to criss-cross London, then Europe and North and South America in underground railways systems. It was his money and enterprise that bought the foundries and smelting works which in time had laid the foundation for the Iverson Iron and Steel Company that Albert had managed from 1968 at the age of thirty-nine until his untimely death, at the age of sixty-three. Now it was to be Melissa's responsibility and the one she had emphatically shied away from whenever mentioned by Albert.

  * * *

  “You remind me of a lonely old man standing over the toilet pan taking a long slow, excruciatingly painful piss over and over again before realising that something in his life is drastically wrong. I'm telling you that I will not become a slave to some smelly, filthy industry like you have done, for the rest of all my life. I have my own life ahead of me and I intend to lead it in the manner I choose. It's not my fault that Mother could not bear you another son to carry the bloody family name on and you can't keep punishing me for Frederick's death. It was a bullet that killed him, not me! His choice to join the army, not mine. I never forced him nor wanted him to leave. He was the only one in this house that I liked!” She took a deep breath before she continued her denunciation of her family's heritage.

  “I've sat with you at those board meetings and I've been treated as if I don't exist. Men like them despise women in general and particularly young ones like me. They do not need to see me once a month for an opinion on what's happening in the iron and steel market and quite frankly I find York old, antiquated and boring. In fact, I find the whole of Yorkshire the same! What I know about steel fabrication could be written on the tip of my lipstick. And they know it! They tolerate me because of you, Father. As far as I'm concerned when you're gone I'm selling your majority shareholding and be done with all their pretend smiles and platitudes.”

  * * *

  In so many ways Melissa mirrored her father and not only in appearance. She shared his height, just under five foot eleven inches and the colour of his hair; black as the freshly mined coal that was carried daily to the factories. His hair, however, was straight, as was her mother's, but it was only in her childhood that she complained about her curls. He was strongly built, being wide-shouldered and slim at the waist, whereas Melissa's build was acutely feminine in every degree. The close-set emerald green eye colouring came from him, as did her stubbornness, her temper and determination to succeed. But her measure of success was not one she shared with him. This defiant disposition was on show as Melissa raged at Albert on the evening of the day of Margret's late October funeral.

  “I've had enough of this constant nagging away at me. I will not take on those factories. They go as soon as you go. The same day, the same hour! The more you go on about it the more chance there is of me phoning your broker than calling for an ambulance if you keel over like Mother. Leave it alone, Father, or I swear ……” She had no need to finish her sentence as Albert knew exactly what she would have sworn to do next.

  But it was a subject that he couldn't leave alone. For those sixteen days that Albert had Melissa to himself the two of them fought ferociously, especially when Albert appealed to his daughter's benevolent side.

  “There are the employees, Melissa. You must consider them before you barter their livelihood away for your own greed. A good many of them have for generations worked for our family since the foundries were first established. There is no other work in most of the areas available to them. If you were to sell our holdings in one go, confidence in our stability would plummet overnight. With the present state of the steel market being what it is that action could be devastating. Think about it another way. Run the business through an advisor. I'll find you one. You have your whole life ahead of you to fulfil your ambitions, after all you're only just out of university. There's ample time. One day you'll no doubt marry and have children. It's common practice now for a wife to add her family name to that of her husband. If you have a son there will be the legacy of more than a hundred of years of Iverson business to inherit, not just mere money. Give a thought to all those people who will be affected by your decision before it's too late.”

  Unfortunately, if there was a caring side to his daughter it wasn't to be found on this or any of the other days they had together.

  “Why would I be in the least bit interested in people I've never met nor am likely to, Father! Would they care about me? Of course they wouldn't. As for marrying; no thank you. I've seen enough of your own to see that doesn't work. Children! Where did that come from? Any thought of me mothering a snivelling, screaming child to carry on your name can be put right out of your head because that will never happen. No, the factories will close and the sooner the better. Of course, none of this matters whilst you're around and who knows how long…?” She turned from the fireplace where she had stood warming herself, to see that her father had left the room. She gave no thought to his sombre mood nor any to his pleas for humility. Although she knew the meaning of that word, at the age of twenty-three it was not something she possessed.

  Albert had felt every vitriolic word of what she said until they stabbed his heart into submission. She was right about his marriage. Some things have to be endured for the good of all, he had often said to his wife, who in turn had agreed, but here was his daughter who would not put a single person in front of her self-interest. He retreated to a room on the ground floor which for almost a year had served as his bedroom as well as his place of work. No longer able to climb the twenty-one stairs of the family's sprawling ancestral mansion outside Hollow Meadow, on the outskirts of Sheffield in Yorkshire, he fell heavily into his favourite, olive coloured, worn wingback leather chair and stared at his desk. His determined gaze fixed on the tarnished silver-framed photograph of a uniformed young man; his son, Frederick.

  “Things would have been different if you had lived, Freddie, my boy. Perhaps, even Melissa would have grown up differently. I have nothing to live for now that your mother has passed away and there's nothing I can do to keep the factories in this family's name. But I will not allow them to be sold simply to fill your sister's purse, to be wasted away on useless men and her other frivolous pastimes.”

  He reached for the decanter of brandy which was always close at hand, put there by his 'man' Joseph. It was beside him with his glass on the fireside table. On pouring a large measure he sat in silence, fondly reminiscing on more enjoyable times when the house was busy with staff and entertaining was the norm. Nowadays, Joseph and his wife Carol were the only staff at the house, but they were more friends than servants. Part-timers were hired when required and contractors used for the extensive gardens and grounds, but at least with Joseph's help he was able to tend his grapevines in the conservatory.

  He gently lifted his son's photo from its place and, cradling it in his spare hand, spoke as if the inanimate object had become alive with feelings and thoughts.

  “I could have given you the excitement you said you craved, Freddie. You could have found that alongside me in the world of corporate business instead of the Army as your chosen vocation. Your mother and I really did believe you when you told us that being a young subaltern meant that you would be kept clear of the action in Northern Ireland. Fools, weren't we! Hindsight is a brutal companion.”

  The depth of the self-examination into his conscience ran concurrent with his consumption of brandy, until he arrived at that point where he was questioning his most passionately held core values. This time his strangled voice was silent.

  Was I wrong to assume that either my son or daughter would want wh
at I wanted so long ago now that I've forgotten the reasons behind the choice I made? Was it a choice, or did I just blindly follow the route I was expected to take as the only son? Was the work ethic I adhered to directly to blame for those miscarriages Margret had to suffer? Or was work the excuse I made for falling into bad company with the results of that too cruel for her to bear? So many hours away from home chasing new markets and potential customers as though my life depended on it. If that's the case then I've been the fool and it's Melissa who is wise wanting away from the business.

  Finally came the depression-ridden thought that had lain dormant until released by the alcohol.

  Was there any point to my life, or, was I deluding everyone?

  The inevitable anger was next as he concluded his conversation with his inner self, and took the only options left open to a normal thinking man when confronted by the enormity of abject disillusionment. He relinquished his grasp on his tangible life provided by his medication and renounced all claim to the reasons he had lived for. That was when normality died and Albert decided to stop living.

  During this period of introspection he had been frugal with the truth. Perhaps, it was simply a clouded memory, or the memories of the many disagreements he'd had with his son banished from recollection through necessity. Only he knew the truth, but the inheritance of an iron and steel business was the primary cause of Frederick's decision to join the Army and escape from his father and the same responsibility that reflected in Melissa's emerald green eyes as she stared into that fire.

  * * *