Sealed With Ink

Nine

Arabella, Wavell would be the death of me...
07 July 1945

Arabella I have to say, you are a lot of things, but an actress is not one of them. I saw through your facade. I understand why you closed yourself off; if I had possessed some self-control around you, I would have shut myself off too. For your sake.

But I can't control myself around you. At all. If it hadn't been for the fact that half the time I couldn't move my body, I would have lost it. Speaking of, bloody hell. I didn't know who Colonel Wavell thought he was to call ripping my muscles apart training. As you can probably tell by my astonishing figure, I was never one to exercise.

Though of course, until Levi grew up, I was the one who helped around the farm. Which, trust me, was full of physical activity. The neighbors thought it odd that my father taught me (a girl) how to manage a farm, but he didn't care. I helped him to shove it in those nosey, opinionated people's faces. But to be quite honest, Arabella, I wasn't born for it. I loved my father, I still do, but the life he was so proud of wasn't for me. But that's a story for another time.

Despite the constant physical efforts the farm supplied for me, nothing could have prepared me for that hard bastard. As if wading through mud, climbing on fences, and crawling beneath barbed wires itself weren't enough, doing it whilst having your chest in bindings. It is a sodding joke. I'm sure you agree with me on that. I wish I could just sit down and have one of my mum's cuppas.

I was not sure I could keep up with the training for much longer. Everyone, everyone, was improving. Even you, Arabella, which I am so proud of you for. Who knew a posh, London-born, city girl would find herself succeeding in an army? I, on the other hand, was failing miserably. I also thought Colonel Wavell was starting to have suspicions. Maybe not entirely about the fact that I was not a man, but definitely that there was something different about me, and not in a good way.

One night, when we were split into groups, mine was taken, by a commander whose name slipped my mind, to a wooden pole. On top of the pole there was a shirt, or a scrap of fabric, hanging, and the only order he gave us was:

Retrieve it. Saxe, you're up first.

I tried my best to contain the nerves that would grow inside me. I had tried so hard the entire time to stay neutral, good enough that I'm not kicked but also average enough that they don't pay too much attention to me. I wanted to stay with you. But this task was not fit for me. I could barely lift the sandbags they made us log around, let alone this. The entire time I walked up to that pole I could see Levi's face, and yours, how I would have damned you both if I aborted.

My boots were absolutely covered in mud, which made it so much harder. The darn things threatened to make me fall the entire way. I can still feel the burn of my thighs as I squeezed them together, the shredding sensation in my arms as I pulled myself up. Centimetre by centimetre. It took me long enough, the commander barked when I finally slid down the dirty pole with the fabric in my hand. I thought I was in the clear; I had retrieved the fabric, the lads had cheered for me. Yet when we set off for our jog back, the ash-blonde commander took me to the side and started asking me questions. About when I started training, how old I was, how many tours I'd been on.

Aside from our rendezvous, my heart had never beat so hard in my chest. My hands didn't stop shaking for an hour afterward, that's why I had come to the barracks so late. I spent a good half an hour hurling my guts up. Darling, I wanted to come to you but I was afraid they would think you were covering for me, or something of the sorts.

So I stayed away and for that, I'm sorry.

And I found myself thinking, maybe you are right. Maybe, our bodies touching would be just a memory.

And maybe it would have to stay that way, forever.

That thought filled me with more dread than you could possibly imagine.

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