The Soldier's Dark Secret

‘Walk. Now.’ Celeste grabbed his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. ‘We have to get you to your room. Do you understand?’

He blinked. He nodded. Then he began to walk, heading down the long corridor at a pace so fast she had to run to keep up with him. Up a set of stairs. Along another corridor, another set of stairs. She had no idea where they were going, but Jack seemed certain. Panting, she followed him until the next set of stairs opened on to a familiar corridor. His bedchamber was directly across from hers.

He threw open the door and dropped on to the bed, his head in his hands. He was shivering violently. Celeste pulled the feather quilt from the bed and wrapped it around him. ‘You had better go. Thank you, but you—you should go.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, I cannot leave you like this.’

He clutched the quilt around him. ‘I will be much restored directly—the worst is— I will be fine.’

She touched his brow. It was soaking with sweat and icy cold. She cursed the resolutely empty fire grate. There was a box beside it. Perhaps that contained coals. She opened the box, but it was empty save for a tinderbox, which she used to light the candles on the night table.

His shivering grew more violent. The front of his shirt was soaking with sweat. ‘You need to take your coat off, Jack.’

He stared at her, his expression unnervingly calm while his body shook. ‘I can’t believe it. How can he think like that? Those women and children. So callous. Casualties of war, he called them. As if they were killed on a battlefield. Innocents! I can’t believe it.’

Celeste knelt at his feet to take off his boots and stockings.

‘I wanted to smash his face.’

‘That was very obvious.’ Celeste uncurled his fingers from the quilt and tugged him to his feet, easing him with some difficulty out of his coat with its complex fastenings. He stood motionless, neither helping nor hindering her, racked with sporadic, violent shivers. She quickly undid his cravat. His shirt was soaking with sweat. She struggled, for the fabric clung to his skin, but eventually managed to pull it over his head. Deciding against removing his breeches, she pulled back the bedcovers and ushered him into bed. He lay flat on his back, his eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling.

‘The irony is, Carruthers is in the right of it. Casualties of war, that’s how the army sees them. That’s what will be written in the file that no one will ever be permitted to look at. Carruthers is right. What mattered is not the slaughter of innocent civilians, but the failure of the mission.’ He turned his face towards her, his expression pleading. ‘I was a soldier for thirteen years. You’d think it would be easy for me. I’ve told myself it was my duty to see it their way, Celeste, that I’m letting them down, that I’m not the man I thought I was, for failing in that duty, but it makes no difference. I can’t. I can’t. And if Carruthers knew the full story—but he doesn’t. No one does. No one except me.’

He struggled to sit up. Celeste pushed him back, holding him down, his torment racking her with guilt and compassion. She spoke soothingly, as one would to a child. ‘You must rest, Jack. You must try not to torment yourself like this.’

‘God knows, I’ve tried, but it refuses to go away. I dream. And I see them. Like ghosts. Living in my head.’ His fingers closed like a vice around her wrist. ‘It was my fault. The village. The women and children. I didn’t double-check my information. I didn’t validate it, cross-reference it as I always did. But they said they couldn’t wait, there was no time and because Wellington’s code-breaker was infallible they acted. Except I’m not. It was my fault, Celeste. My fault. Oh, God, all mine.’ His grip on her wrist loosened. She thought she had never seen a man look so haunted as he turned away, and a racking sob escaped him.

Overcome with pity, feeling utterly helpless, Celeste sank on to the bed beside him and curled into his back, wrapping her arms around him. His shoulders heaved. She could feel his muscles clenched tight in his efforts to control himself. She wanted to tell him it would be all right, but how on earth could she? She could not imagine what horrific images he had in his head, but the ones that Carruthers and Jack had between them managed to instil in hers were bad enough. Here was the dark secret which had scarred Jack for life. Here, laid bare for the first time were the results of that pain, the silent agonies he had kept hidden from everyone. She pressed herself closer against him, wrapped her arms more tightly around him, as if she could somehow stop him from shattering into a thousand pieces.

She pressed her mouth against the nape of his neck. His skin was burning now, where it had been icy only a few moments before. The sobs were quieting now. He was no longer shaking. She kissed him again, closing her eyes, wishing that she could give him something, anything, to ease his suffering.