Army Of Angels (A Glanny Fan Fiction)

Chapter Fourteen

Army Of Angels.

Chapter Fourteen:

June 1990:

"So you recovered from shell shock just by writing some poems and sharing them with Danny?" He asked.

I leant backwards in my chair. He didn't understand. Not properly anyway. I guess no one can understand unless they have been there. Felt it. Seen what it does to people. The toughest of soldiers could break at the slightest thing. A gust of wind could cause a man to shriek in pure terror. It ruins you. It ruined me. It ruined Danny because he had to live seeing me like it.

"That's the thing you see? I never did recover like everyone thinks I did. Even today, I still get flashbacks to those terrible days. To the rats. Wilfred. Mark. Danny. I get flashbacks daily. You can recover from shell shock it's just I never did," I said.

He frowned slightly.

"But ... You did ... What you did," he said.

"Yes I did. I cast it aside. I didn't recover. I learnt how to cope. General O'Donoghue. The poems. It all helped me cope. Not recover," I explained.

March 1915:

The nightmares were back. I couldn't control them. I started from a particularly nasty dream where the star of the show was not Wilfred as such. It was Danny. In the state I last saw Wilfred.

'You let Wilfred die. You'd do the same to me wouldn't you?' He had said in my dream.

I sat up as fast as a shot shouting 'NO!' I would not let him die. I would save him like he saved me. If the situation ever arises then I would. I'd risk my god damn life to save his. Like he did for me.

I felt arms around my shoulders and hands gripping my shoulder blades tightly. I turned slightly to see Danny sitting on my bed and looking, no searching, my face for the answer to an internal question he must be asking.

"Are you okay?" He asked quietly.

I shook my head in answer. There's no point in hiding from him. That would be insane.

"Tell me about it," he said.

Those four words were my release. I leant my head against his chest and breathed in and out deeply. Slowly, I told him all about my dream.

Once I had finished incanting every detail of the dream he leant back against my pillows bringing me down with him. My head lay on his chest and I focused on the rise and fall of his chest. Almost like the rise of a new wave of soldiers and the fall as they get mowed down by enemy bullets.

"Tell me about you?" Danny asked.

I moved my head to look at his.

"What?" I asked.

"You heard,"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I don't know much about you. Only military stuff,"

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything and everything. Surprise me," he said.

"Ok. Well ask me a question and I shall answer it," I said.

"Hmm ok. Where were you born?"

"Dublin,"

"What's your background?" He asked.

I hesitated. What do I tell him? That I'm actually just some poor bloke who lost his father and whose mother had to do everything she could in order to make ends meet? That I enlisted in the army so that I could earn some money for my mother for if or when I get back?