Never Let Me Go

Chapter 4 - The Death Letter

A few nights later I sat around a campfire with the leaders of our next attack group. We were planning when David, a fellow soldier came carrying a sack full of letters. Words of war and attack stopped as everyone opened their letters. One was pushed into my hand. I looked down at my name roughly scrawled on the small yellow envelope. This was from Afghanistan… I recognised the stamps, they were Anita’s. I tore open the letter. It was from John Collins. The soldier who needed the amputation. I read the note almost thirteen times before I could take my eyes off of the faded paper.

Anita wasn’t dead.

She’d been kidnapped.

I ran. The commander was in his tent, lying on a wooden strut used for making beds smoking a cigarette. He looked at me as I entered, breathless. Clutching the letter like my lifeline I handed it to him. He looked it over twice before looking at me.

“What do you plan to do soldier? You have three more months out in the field before you are relieved of your duties.” I fell to my knees. “Sam please. Anita’s alive. Let me go to Afghan. I can bring her home.” Sam swung his legs around and sat up, flicking his ass on the floor and crunching it under his boot.

“You know I can’t do that Luke. I really wish I could man, I’d want the same thing if that was my girl out there. But I can’t let you go. Not for three more months.” I stood suddenly, breathing deeply.

“Sam let me go.” I was not going to take no for an answer. “Let me leave.” He sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry man.” That’s when it happened. My fist connected with his jaw.

“No sir. I’m sorry. Hope that heals up in time.” I walked out of the tent, hitched a ride on the weapons truck to the city. I was going to Afghanistan. Hang in there baby.

The plane ride made me miss the standard of living I had been used to my whole life. If one thing I had taken from war is appreciate what you have. The three important F’s. Family, friends and food. Friends especially, I haven’t really thought about them since I got on the front lines, I haven’t got any letters from them so that’s probably why. The plane landed in Kabul, the capital. It took ages for me to get a ride to the army base Anita was on. Night had fallen before I arrived, there were fourteen others travelling the way of the camp or close to it. We stopped by a refugee camp on the city outlands and stopped for the night. No matter how much I pleaded with the driver to carry on towards the camp.

“I’m sorry sir but too dangerous.” He said dangerous over and over. Like I didn’t know that. He noticed my uniform and pulled me aboard his truck before I could ask where he was going. The fire was the only patch of light in the surrounding darkness. It was going to take eighteen more hours to arrive at the camp and then a further god knows how long until I found Anita. I hoped to god she was okay…

A man sat next to me, offering me bread. I took it and thanked him. He told me about his son, who had also been a soldier, his name was too difficult to pronounce but I listened. He had died in battle four years ago and his mother had killed herself in order to join her son in heaven. I nodded when he asked if I should carry on, soon the whole traveling group was listening to his tragic story in order to find his sons’ body as it had not been cremated.

“I wish for my son to know true peace in the midst of war. I shall lay him to rest finally, before joining him myself. Then I shall be reunited with my loving wife and the good lord in heaven.” The woman cried and the man agreed, if we were to die we wanted to see our loved ones one final time. The fire was stomped out and the shuffling of the sleeping bags and blankets filled the silent night. Gun shots fired from far in the distance.

It was going to be a long night.