The Numbered

Chapter Thirty-Three

As Hannah ran the cold tap and filled the glass, stole a glance at Zeke. He looked up and gave her a small reassuring smile. She shrugged her shoulders in response. Zeke tilted his head towards Cecily and silently mouthed, "Go on". Hannah slowly walked back to Cecily, placing the glass on the little wooden table by her side. She sat down and waited.

"I'm sorry, Hannah. It's been a very long time since I talked about this with anyone."

Cecily was hunched over in the chair, her right hand held up in a sling, her left-hand fiddling with the brocade edging on her cream cardigan. A solitary tear drop travelled slowly down her face. Hannah did not know how to respond.

"This must be all very confusing for you?" she continued. "Would you like to ask me anything?"

Hannah looked at the woman in front of her. She remembered so clearly Eastman's brief description of her. Cecily was still a beautiful woman all these years later. Hair now grey and skin now lined, but there was an ethereal beauty to her. To Hannah it was as if she was in the presence of great wisdom. Cecily looked up and stared back at Hannah. Although her milky eyes held no sight, she appeared to be searching Hannah's face for something. Hannah felt compelled to answer.

"How did you escape after...?" Cecily winced. Hannah stopped talking.

"I have this young man to thank for that," she replied and gestured towards the kitchen area. "Stop hiding over there and pretending to do some work, Zeke and come sit by Hannah and me."

Zeke sighed and slumped down heavily next to Cecily. Hannah gave him a small reassuring smile and Zeke rolled his eyes. She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd stuck his tongue out at her. His acting like a small sulky child made Hannah want to laugh, but she didn't.

"I first met Zeke when they brought him to Charlie's surgery with deep shrapnel wounds. He was so badly injured and he'd lost a lot of blood. The medics on the front line didn't think he would make it back to the hospital, so they brought him to us. Zeke wasn't the first soldier we'd treated. During the Ten Mile battle, there were huge losses of life on both sides. They fought each other with such ferocity, each trying to hold onto a useless strip of land, that nobody ever really wanted in the first place. Anyway, during the third week of the battle, the insurgents were starting to panic. The army was retaking ground quickly, due to their sheer numbers, so the insurgents started resorting to ever more dangerous tactics. They rained homemade bombs and stolen mortar rounds down on the troops. One of these injured our dear, Zeke."

Cecily reached over and patted his knee. Zeke took over the story.

"Hannah, I am very lucky; my wounds, although deep, weren't life threatening. Fortunately I don't remember the explosion or the pain. I think my mind has blocked all of that out. I do remember waking up on a trolley, in a small white room, terrified. One minute I'm ordering my section to fire, the next I was looking up through a slit in my bandages at Cecily."

"He was in a mess Hannah," Cecily continued. "We called the hospital for a bed. Charlie worried that he might go into septic shock, but they had no spaces left, so we kept him with us. It took him six weeks to be up and about. Charlie was so busy with the SPRs and his work on the front line that he left me to care for Zeke. I would cover the days and Charlie would do the nights, sleeping by Zeke's bed. It broke my heart that he had no family to visit him."

Hannah looked over at Zeke. She realised that she knew very little about him, particularly his personal life. She wondered why he had no family to visit. Did he have a wife now, children maybe? Zeke caught her eye, embarrassment reddening his cheeks.

"Zeke healed quickly over those few weeks and we spent a lot of time talking. I was initially guarded in what I said, but over time I told him all about Charlie and later about the ba..." Cecily's voice broke.