the dawn patrol

“Let’s see if I understand you correctly,” Jack said in a soft tone. He was kneeling in front of her, playing with his gun by running it up and down the inside of her thighs. She was crying, trying to control herself, and in as much obvious pain, as she was frightened. There was blood all over the front of her dress. Her lips were cut, her eyes were swollen, and her nose was broken. He hit her kneecaps when she tried to close her legs, and then looked up at her, trying to sound sincere.

“I’m sorry, did that hurt?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I thought it might have,” he said. “I mean, it sounded like it hurt. But, moving forward, let me see if I understand you correctly. One—and this is probably the most important point—you’re not a German, but a citizen of the British Empire. You’re actually English. From Coventry in fact, and if I knew anything about accents, I would recognize that. But being a Canadian, you’ll forgive me for that, I’m sure.

“Two. As a British citizen, I’m almost certain you feel you should have rights. Correct?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid you gave up your rights the moment you brought that man into my house plotting whatever you were plotting!”

“And what was that?” There was a certain degree of defiance in her voice.

“My death for one thing! You wanted him to kill me!”

“That’s not true! I loved you!”

“Loved me? How can you say you loved me, and yet, be with him at the same time? How can you still say you loved me, after what I’ve done to you? After all I’ve said? I heard what he said to you. I heard him. ‘They pay me quite well for the information you give me’. What do you think he meant by that? Cricket?”

“I don’t know what he meant.”

“But just three hours ago you said he was acting strange and you wanted to bring him here for me to question him. So? Why would you do that if you didn’t think he was a spy? He had a gun. How did you plan to get that away from him? Were you going to sleep with him? Were you going to fuck him like you fucked me?”

He punched her again, and I wanted to run into the room and stop him, but Ray held me back.

She cried out for him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He just kept hitting her, the tears in his eyes glistening in the candlelight. I couldn’t watch anymore and turned my back on the scene, burying my head in my hands and stopping my ears with my fingers as I listened to his sobbing and the sickening punches he seemed intent on delivering.

“He’s got to do it,” Ray said. For some reason he appeared hypnotized by the whole thing. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Jack for a minute. I kept wondering when we were supposed to step in.

“You know she’s guilty,” Ray said, pulling my hands down and levelling a look at me. “You heard what that guy said, as clearly as I did. She’s as good as dead. They shoot spies. He knows it, and so does she.”

“But he loved her.”

“He did. And that should make it easier then, shouldn’t it?”

*

Jack opened the door to the room we were in and I looked up at him. His knuckles raw and bleeding, he wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand, leaving a bloody stripe across his mouth. His mouth looked like the smeared face of a clown’s. His eyes were red-rimmed and blood-shot, and I could see tears still as he pressed his shirt against his face and leaned against the wall behind him. He took a deep breath to gather himself.

I looked at Cecelia propped up in the chair. Jack had wrapped an electrical cord around her to keep her from falling to the floor, but all I could see were the speckles of blood around the chair. Jack pulled the heavy curtains back and the room filled with early morning light, dust motes floating in the air like so many crystals. He folded the blankets and laid them on the floor in front of the window and then turned to look at us.

“I’m done,” he said in a matter of fact tone.

“Did she say anything? I mean anything important?” Ray asked, looking at her slumped over body. “Is she dead?”

“I don’t think so; you heard what she said,” Jack replied with a note of impatience.

“Well, if it wasn’t anything important to you, how do you expect me to know?” Ray said.

I bent down in front of her and picked up her hand, feeling for a pulse. It was faint, but it was there.

“Is she alive?” Ray asked.

I nodded. “What’re you going to do with her?” I asked.

Jack shook his head, and then wiped his nose again. I guess he tasted some of the blood, because he spat it out.

“Are you going to kill her?” Ray asked.

He shook his head. “I thought I would. I mean, I thought it’d be easy once I found out what I wanted, but she wouldn’t say anything. All she kept saying was she didn’t do anything. She brought the man here for me to question.”

“Maybe she isn’t lying?” I offered.

“Do you really believe that?” Ray asked me.

I looked at Cecelia and then Jack. I shook my head. No. As much as I wanted to, I didn’t. When it came right down to it, I remembered how the dead man said they paid him well for the information she brought him. It seemed enough for Jack to condemn her, and since his life was the one on the line when it was all was said and done, I didn’t feel as if I had any say in it. The final decision was his.

There came a feeling of resignation at the thought of knowing it was his decision, but there was also a feeling of relief. I wanted to distance myself from everything I’d borne witness to; I wanted to separate myself from the man I called my brother, and yes, the man I no longer recognized.

This was Jack’s war. I knew that now. The rules were different; they were his rules. Give me the safety and security of a Mitchell B-25 dropping bombs on anonymous people I didn’t have to face - on a scene I was a hundred times removed from - and I would sleep the sleep of angels and babies every night. Let me stand face to face with my enemy and I would falter; let me love my enemy as Jack had, and I would fail. I didn’t know whether I should feel proud of Jack for being a better man than I thought I was, or sorry for him for not being the man I hoped he might be.

“Watch here ‘til I get back,” Jack said. He was looking at Cecelia slumped over in the chair.

“What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“I need a lorry of some sort,” Jack said, turning toward the door.

“Why?”

“I have to take care of this. I can’t leave that body here,” he said, pointing to the man under the blanket. “I have to think this through.”

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