JACK OF DIAMONDS

CHAPTER 19: THREE HOURS EARLIER

So what we have here is an explanation of what “Buildering” is, and what it’s about.

Watch this whenever you get a chance, but keep in mind that this is what Artie does. He scales walls and enters apartments from open balcony doors. Only it’s 1923. The buildings are all old and ornate. There are no special alarm systems that he has to figure out.

CHAPTER 19

THREE HOURS EARLIER…

Artie woke up before the dawn.

His muscles ached from the climb up the wall last night, but he fell to the floor and did forty quick push-ups, regardless. He wasn’t getting any younger, he told himself as soon as he finished. Still, it had been an exhilarating climb, even if now it felt like he’d been beaten bloody with a cricket bat. He remembered the first time he’d tried climbing a wall. He nearly fell. He was young, and told himself that he should’ve carried a rope with him in case he ran into any obstacles, but he’d always left it behind. He was so young back then. He knew that so far, he’d been lucky. He’d only had the one near fall, in London some years ago, and was lucky to have only broken a finger.

I’ve had too many close calls over the years, he thought.

He looked at his hands. They were rough and calloused, and he looked at the finger he’d broken. He’d reset it himself, but it hadn’t set properly, and now it had a slight bend at the last knuckle. He bent it back into shape, but it wouldn’t stay. He was lucky it was his pinkie finger, he reminded himself. The fact it was bent at the last knuckle sometimes worked in his favour, but he’d have preferred to forgo the pain rather than reap the benefits of a wider grip. He couldn’t remember a time over the last four years when he hadn’t suffered from some minor bump, or injury. At the very least, he would wake up bruised.

I don’t remember a night in the last five years when I’ve slept more than four hours. But I don’t complain about that either, do I? It doesn’t take an education to know what the problem is; but understanding what the problem is, that doesn’t resolve the issue, does it? Is it a problem?

He sometimes wondered which memory haunted him the most; he knew there was only the one. And rightfully so, he thought. If he’d have come home with a closet full of memories he would’ve ended up like Crockett—shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, unable to sleep, or talk to anyone without crying—finally killing himself because it seemed like the only answer.

It was probably for the best.

But then, Crockett had been utterly insane. You could ask any man who’d served with him what they thought of Crockett, and they’d all say the same thing. The man used to crawl out into No Man’s Land and come back with the ears of German soldiers he’d met and killed along the way. They were tied around his neck with a leather thong. They even gave him a medal for his night time sorties. When they should’ve shipped him home and locked him up, they didn’t; they sent him over the top again, thinking he’d get himself killed.

He didn’t.

Shell shock they call it.

Small wonder they call it that.

The nightmare thundering of the guns was as close to putting your head inside a metal drum and pounding on it with a hammer as you could get. All day, and all night, for a week straight. It wasn’t something you could forget even if you wanted to. Men were going deaf standing beside breech-loading guns; tossing buckets of water on the works to cool them; slipping in the mud holes that formed as the guns rolled back and forth in ruts they’d made with each concussive blast.

And you’d look across the open field toward the German lines as you approached, having gone over the top and asking yourself, how they could possibly survive such a bombardment? He remembered how he wanted to piss himself in fear when it was time for him to go over the top that first time.

Carrying seventy pounds of weight, he slipped and fell at the same moment the German machine guns opened fire. He remembered not getting up until the bullets stopped digging into the ground around him. And when he looked up, the rear of the line was a hundred yards ahead of him, marching into a hail of more bullets. He reached over to the man beside him, and remembered thinking how he’d urge the man forward—use him as a shield—needing someone beside him, anyone, who might give him that little drop of bravery he was so desperate to find somewhere inside of him.

The man he rolled over lay staring up at the morning sun with dead eyes. There was a hole in his chest the size of his fist. The man looked so peaceful though, and Artie thought it was easy to picture himself in his place.

Not today, he remembered telling himself.

There may have been no turning back, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use the dead and fallen in front of him as a barrier. And he did, many times. The problem with that he was quick to discover, was that he often made it to the target. That was where he’d first discovered the rage within him.

And that had been his first taste of battle. The single-most frightening day of his life, he thought at the time. While it would prove to be the greatest loss in British military history—a record 50,000 dead, with all the stats, records, and names to prove it—it wouldn’t prove to be the most frightening day of his life. Every day would prove to be the most frightening day of his life. He may not have suffered through shell shock, he thought, but he certainly suffered; they’d all suffered.

For a year he’d faced the onslaught. He could never quite conquer his fear whenever he had to go over the top. He never doubted for a moment if theirs was the right cause, not until he began asking himself what the point of all the endless slaughter was? He’d been lucky, he knew that. He was promoted simply because he’d outlived everyone.

He knew it wasn’t for meritorious bravery.