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“McGonigal, sir.”
Reg found speaking those words to Paddy more difficult than the act of burying Eoin in the sand. He watched the shutter fall over Paddy’s face. “Oh. —okay.”
But it wasn’t okay and Reg witnessed Paddy’s grief swell into a madman’s death wish, Kershaw shouting all the while that they couldn’t go north with not but a few grenades. With a vicious curl of his lip, Paddy snarled at the poor lad, and it was Reg who stepped between them.
“It was his choice, Paddy. The choice we all made.”
Like a rabid dog, Paddy trembled and sneered against him. His forehead against Paddy’s, Reg refused to back down. He was prepared to take it, take whatever rage Paddy could summon—heavy fists or harsh words. C’mon, ole Reg could take it.
But there were dark clouds overhead and high ground was needed. Paddy simmered and stood a sentry over Eoin’s makeshift grave, told them to leave without him. Reg wouldn’t—but he looked at the men who looked at Paddy, and Reg realized what was at stake. So, he barked a few orders and off they went, leaving Paddy some privacy for his grief.
They marched south across the sand dunes, scraps of cloth over their mouths and eyes, the North African sun blaring down. Reg was stiff from the fall, his hands and arms scraped, his tailbone bruised. He and the men marched along the endless dusty horizon until the rains came.
The sand turned to slush, the men sinking quickly with every miserable step.
“What a fucking disaster,” grumbled Reg. “What a goddamn disaster.”
Kershaw and the others were desperate for signs of hope, looking for flickering lights in the distance and straining to hear voices on the wind. Reg didn’t have the heart to remind them that any chance of life out in that great sand sea was more likely to be an enemy than a friend. As they trudged laboriously onward, rain pelting their faces, eyes, arms, boots sinking in the muddy sand rivers, Reg feared they may never see Paddy again.
How could he find them now? How could he fare this storm alone, no doubt doubly drowning in his grief as he was?
Then, miraculously, Paddy was there. With a grunt and a nod to keep going, the Irishman joined their party on the slow march south to regroup.
Days tumbled into weeks as the remaining members of L Detachment attempted to recover their losses. New orders came, a new base was established, night raids were carried out, and through it all, there was Reg and Paddy and the ghost of a boy from Belfast.
“Gotta eat, Paddy.”
“I will eat when I am hungry.”
Reg punched his superior officer lightly in the shoulder. “Can’t tell me you ain’t starvin’, all the slop we been eatin’. C’mon, now. Chef’s made his world famous bully beef. A fuckin’ delight, that is.”
But Paddy would not be deterred, sitting silently as he was at the piano he had stolen for a man who no longer lived. He’d been sat for over an hour, fingers occasionally ghosting the keys, but never quite touching. The others in the mess hall had given him a wide berth as they drank and ate, arguing over a card game or swapping photos of girls from back home.
So, Reg huffed and stomped off to eat with the rest of them, but later, he would make a bowl and leave it with Paddy in his tent, and neither would speak. But in the morning, the bowl would be empty and their ritual dance would begin again.
At Tamet, that first exhilarating mission, there was a massacre. Low hanging fruit. Unarmed men. Pilots and engineers, as Paddy had said, critical to the Axis war effort. But unarmed and drunk, nonetheless. Reg had flung himself over the edge along with Paddy—Kershaw, too—and had been there to reel in their crazed leader when all of the killing—so much killing, so many men, no longer singing and laughing—was done.
Paddy had not so much as flinched as the last man hid behind the piano—and it’s always a fucking piano, isn’t it?—and begged, pleaded, cried for his life. The Irishman had opened automatic gunfire on him and grunted, satisfied with when the job was done.
“You’ve got to come back, Paddy,” Reg told him, hours, days later.
“I am a war dog, am I not?” Paddy cleaned his disassembled weapon with a ruthless efficiency. “My masters have let me off my leash. What can I do but howl and attack?”
Go. Kill. Return. –Go Again.
“He would not want this.”
With a vicious snarl, Paddy was on his feet, seething, weapon abandoned. “How the fuck would you know what he would want?”
Reg stood his ground, a great swell of pity rising within him. He tried to mask his pity—Paddy neither wanted nor needed it—, and he said, plainly, “Nobody wants this for someone they love.”
After Lewes died, the men were given nearly a week’s leave in Cairo, a respite from their grief and that damnable desert. Paddy did not join them on the transport back. Before they disembarked, Reg wound his way to Paddy’s tent just beyond the walls of Jalo Oasis. The bearded man lounged on his cot, a mountain of books built up around him like a fort.
“You ought to come with us, Pad.”
“I have no need for Cairo.”
“A hot shower, a hot meal—it’ll do ya some good. Come with us. Me and the boys, we’ll make sure ya don’t have too much fun. Maybe even give them MPs another show, aye?” Reg grinned, remembering fondly their courtyard boxing match at Ghadzi military prison. The fight that had started Reg down this path.
“Cairo is a festering cesspool of both the pompous and the incompetent. There’s nothing for me in Cairo besides the exact sort who always get my goat. I have no need for it.” Paddy heaved a great sigh. Turned the page in his book. Refused to meet Reg’s gaze. “I will be here when you return.”
“Paddy—”
The Irishman pointedly cleared his throat, and with a sour turn in his gut, Reg left him to his own devices. True to his word, Paddy was there when they returned days later. “How was Cairo?” he asked when Reg dropped onto the crumbling stone wall of the old fort to sit beside Paddy, who was busy sharpening his knife in the afternoon sun.
“Loud,” beamed Reg. “And full of pretty women.”
“Pretty prostitutes.”
“That’s what I said.” Reg gave a chuckle, clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Missed ya, though.”
Paddy snorted, his own mouth twitching with a subtle grin. “Aye. I’m sure you did.”
They didn’t speak about Paddy’s pilgrimage into the great sand sea and his unfulfilled quest to find the body of the man he loved. They never would. But that evening before they parted for bed—another mission awaiting—Reg would rest a hand on the back of Paddy’s neck, squeezing slowly once, twice. And the next night, Paddy would come to supper without Reg having to ask. He would sit and chat with the boys, Cooper hanging on his every word, Kershaw howling with laughter, and Reg would grin at him and Paddy would nod back—and that would be enough.