Ghost of War
by Quintin Snell
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
Like clockwork, at opening time, he came to see her. She hadn’t even realised she had been there all through the night, agonising on how to approach the issue.
“Shaun, I’m doing a piece on current soldiers. I don’t want what happened with the Colonel to happen again. So I’m collecting their stories. Who they are when they aren’t wearing the uniform, that kind of thing.”
“That sounds cool. Are you going to interview me, too?”
“Sort of, yes. I already know quite a lot about you. Let’s start with something easy. What’s your name.”
He laughed. “You know that already.”
“Humour me. Pretend I don’t.”
“Okay. 85524214BG, Lance Corporal Shaun McCarthy, at your service.” He gave her a little bow and a flourish. The force number matched the one in her records.
“Your force number, the first two numbers are the year in which you registered, yes?”
“That’s right. This is fun, like a full-on interview.”
“That’s good. Now, Shaun, I want you to think hard. What is today’s date?”
“Huh? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Please, Shaun.”
“Sheesh, okay. It is the eighth of October, 1988.”
That was the day after the party. She thought back to when she first met him. Exactly twenty years later. A tear formed at the corner of her eye. “Shaun, it isn’t 1988, it’s 2009.”
He scoffed. “You know April Fool’s lasts only one day, right?”
“I’m not messing around. Look at the clock.”
As well as the time, it also displayed the date: 7/02/09
“Strange. I never noticed a date before. So you got a new clock and changed the date. Marelize, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it’s not really funny anymore. I thought we had something here. Why are you doing this?”
“Shaun, my liefling, I do like you. That’s exactly why I’m doing this. Think, really hard. There was a homecoming party. Do you remember?”
“Of course I do. It was last night.”
“How could it have been? We’ve been seeing each other for months. Haven’t you been visiting me every day?”
“Well, of course I have.”
“Where were you a week ago?”
“I was here with you.” He looked confused “No. I was in my tank, on the border. We were withdrawing; the war was over. Marelize, what’s going on? My head hurts. How could I be in two places at once?”
She hugged him. “Oh, my poor Shaun. You did come home, and you did have a party.” Her eyes glittered with tears. She showed him her research, the papers and photos. “I think someone killed you.”
“But I’m here. I got drunk, then woke up this morning. I went for a walk, said hi to the dogs.”
“Shaun, those dogs died years ago. You’ve been haunting this place for twenty years!”
He looked at her, wide-eyed. She saw realisation dawning on his face as he remembered what had happened that night. He tried to speak, but all he could get out was “Oh!”
Marelize heard a muffled ‘pop’. A dark spot appeared on his chest, and grew wetly, blood from a bullet wound. His outlines started to get hazy, his body losing substance, fading.
He felt a pull, dragging him away from her. He tried to turn, see what was dragging him, but he couldn’t. He started to scream as he felt himself being sucked backwards, towards a black pit he couldn’t see, but could definitely feel. She grabbed for his hands, but hers passed right through them, they swirled like mist. “Save me! Find out what happened! Find me!”
Then he was gone, the only trace, the frost on her hands, already evaporating. Tears dripped from her cheeks. She gave a deep sob and spoke to the empty space where he had been. “I will find out. I promise.”
* * *
Over the next few days, Marelize dug back into her dusty archive rooms, digging out old personnel files. She found the list of Shaun’s dormmates. Then she managed to cajole a personnel officer to release the military police case file to her, as part of her ongoing project. A bag of biltong, a bottle of brandy and a promise that she wouldn’t make any of the details public sweetened the deal. “I promise. This is purely for research, so I can have a better picture of the unit back then.”
She read through the file, not surprised at how little info it contained. With no evidence of a crime, it had been a most superficial investigation. Plus, the witness accounts were slim at best: it was no secret that most military personnel despised the MP’s.
She gradually found and listed the names of people she wanted to talk to. Top of her list were the men who had slept on either side of Shaun. Most young soldiers preferred to sleep closest to their friends if they could. Finding their current contact details was more difficult, though. The records included next of kin details, but people move, change numbers, even die. There was no social media, or instant messaging back then. Even cell phones were in their infancy, with telephone, text messaging and the snake game being pretty much the limit. Most phones weren’t even capable of connecting to the Internet.
She reached out and finally managed to get hold of a few names on her list. The men were more than happy to meet with her. One thing old soldiers love to do is reminisce. One in particular, named Anthony, was a treasure trove of information. He was shocked to discover his friend had actually died that night. Marelize did not mention she was in a romantic relationship with his ghost.
“I thought it was weird for him to go AWOL only days before we klaared out. That never rang true with me. He was a really lekker guy. A good friend and a good soldier. I knew he hadn’t run. He was talking about signing on permanent force, so why run? The war officially ended on the thirtieth of August. We all pulled out, drove over that bridge and it was over. They promised we would return to the unit in a couple of weeks, but it took a bit longer. You know the military. But anyway, he was an experienced soldier in a peacetime army. Perfect time to make a career of it, right? That’s how he saw it, anyway.”
Anthony offered her a drink; Marelize said a coffee would be nice. When he came back with two steaming mugs, he said, “Thinking back to that day... So we came home, had our celebration and went to sleep, pretty much a little before dawn. We had all gotten our kit ready for inspection early, slept on the floor in our sleeping bags. Morning inspection was when we realised he was gone. That was around ten in the morning, later than normal, because of the party.
“Afterwards, the MP’s grilled us for a while, but we blew those maggots off. Over the next week, we handed back our loan kit, had our passing-out parade and the troop trucks took us to the bus or train station. After that, we were civvies.”
“Is there anything more you can tell me, Anthony? Anything at all?”
“Nope, I’m afraid that’s it. But maybe Johan can tell you more. They were pretty tight, both in the same crew.”
“I haven’t been able to find him. Unfortunately, I could only track a few of you down.”
“You know, let me see your list. I managed to stay in contact with some of the guys. Maybe I can add some names and numbers for you.”
He went to another room and came back with a little notebook of his own. With Anthony’s help, Marelize added some numbers and addresses, including Johan’s.
“Do you mind if I make a copy of this? You have a few names I am missing, and it would be great to organise a reunion.”
“Of course.”
He copied the details he didn’t already have. “Thanks for letting me know what happened to Shaun.”
She promised she would include him if she learned anything more. And then she left, reformulating her interviewing strategy. Johan’s name, now circled, was at the top of her list.
* * *
She pressed the button on the intercom, number 624.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, is this Johan Venter?”
“Ja, it is. Who’s asking?”
“Hi, I’m Marelize Smit. I’m looking into the disappearance of Shaun McCarthy. Would you mind talking to me?”
“That was ages ago. You a cop or something?”
“No, nothing like that, I’m the historian at the School of Armour.”
The foyer door unlocked with a buzz. “Sixth floor, come on up.”
She took the lift to the sixth floor. The block, in a dodgy looking neighbourhood, had looked drab from the outside and was even worse once inside. The paint on the walls was stained and peeling from the ceiling in ragged patches. The parquet flooring may once have been attractive, but was now dull and scuffed, with pieces missing. The stink of trash and cheap antiseptic lingered in the air. For a moment she considered leaving, going home, where it was safe. Then she remembered Shaun’s heart-wrenching screams and steeled her resolve. She had promised to find out the truth for him.
She came to the door marked 624. It too, was dirty and stained. She knocked and heard shuffling inside, then Johan opened the door. She barely recognised him from his photos. He was flabby and hadn’t shaved in some time. He wore a pair of track suit pants and a faded Metallica tee shirt. He had a half-smoked cigarette behind his right ear and a ball link chain around his neck, tucked inside his shirt. She had been around soldiers long enough to recognise dog tags. His shoulders were stooped as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Come on in.”
She looked around the lounge. The furnishings were minimal, battered couch and chair, coffee table worn on the edges from years of being used as a foot rest. Opposite the couch was a tube TV and VCR player on a cabinet. He didn’t even bother hiding the girlie mags on the table as he invited her to sit. She took the chair, trying to ignore the greasy stains and the smell of cigarette smoke, stale booze and dirty body; he sprawled on the couch.
“So, what do you wanna know?”
“You were friends with Shaun, weren’t you?”
“Ja. In the army. We were pretty close.”
“Did you know he didn’t go AWOL that night?”
“That night. How could I forget?”
He sighed and slumped even further into his couch. “I knew this day would come. I’ve dreaded it for all these years. But, now it’s here, I’m actually relieved. I can finally get it off my chest.”
He took the chain off and tossed it onto the table. There it lay, chain and two tags, and something else. A tarnished bullet shell.
Now she felt the first stirrings of fear. How stupid could she be? She was in a strange man’s home, in a dodgy neighbourhood. Nobody knew where she was, and he had just chucked a used bullet on the table. She started looking around, estimating the distance to the door. Did he lock it? I don’t think so.
He interrupted her escape plan by speaking again. He barely seemed to notice she was even there.
“That’s from the bullet I killed him with.” Johan stared at it for long minutes then started to sob. “It was an accident. We were young and stupid, drunk, and thought ourselves immortal. We had just come back from a war where our life expectancy was only a few minutes. Did you know that? In conventional warfare, a tank crew is considered lucky to live longer than that. And we lasted almost two years. After the things we had seen and done, we came home. I had a magazine full of rounds; we all brought our souvenirs.”
He stopped talking and pulled the cigarette from his ear. He lit it with a blue plastic lighter. He sat back and sucked deeply on his smoke. Smoke drifted upwards from the glowing tip, and added its sharp odour to the already stuffy room. He sighed as he stubbed it out in an overflowing ashtray and carried on talking.
“Shaun and I got it into our heads that it would be a good idea to shoot beer cans. While holding them. Stupid, of course, but it seemed like such a good idea at the time. He went first. He held the can, stretched out at arm’s length and I shot it. Right in the middle. Perfect shot. That’s when I saw his chest. You know those freak million to one chances? This was the king of those. The bullet deflected inside the can and hit him. Shaun looked so surprised, he even laughed. Just once. ‘Hah!” I still hear it, every time I close my eyes. Then he fell. I remember it perfectly, it was exactly half past two in the morning.”
Johan sniffed and wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. “I panicked. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison for a stupid mistake. Boy, was I wrong. I killed my best friend. I’ve been in a prison ever since. Let me tell you something, Miss Smit, guilt is the cruellest prison.”
Wide-eyed, she nodded.
He stopped talking. Marelize prompted him. Despite her dread, she was desperate to know. She had to keep her promise. “What happened next?”
“Next. Aah, what happened next? That’s what you’re here to find out. I cleaned up. He died so quickly that he hardly bled at all. I cleaned up my tracks. I carried his body to that old tank by the museum, the Comet, that’s the bigger one. I dumped him in there. Nobody ever pays it any attention, I figured he wouldn’t be found. Guess I was right about that, hey? Then I took a hot shower with my rifle, the best way to clean it, put it back on my bunk. That was when I remembered the cartridge.”
He leaned forward and picked up his tags. “This cartridge. I hid it in my boot. Then I went back to the party and drank until I fell down. Pretty much been doing that ever since. I pretended it never happened. Got my papers, left the army. Shaun got listed as AWOL, I was in the clear. Even when I got home, I couldn’t believe I got away with it. I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to catch me. And here you are. Not what I expected, I must admit, I wasn’t expecting...” He gestured at her, “this.”
Marelize was on the verge of panic now. This man had killed once, by accident. Would he kill her now, to keep his secret? “What happens now?”
“Now, I want you to leave. I suppose, you’ll be talking to the cops, or something, and that’s okay. I’m not going to try stop you.”
Her heart pounding, her only thought of escape, she almost ran past him and puffed out a sigh of relief as the door closed and locked behind her. Her legs felt boneless as she hurried to the elevator: she had to stop and lean against the wall to hold herself up.
As soon as she was able, she rushed back to her car and started the long drive home. She knew she would eventually tell the police, but first, there was something more important she had to do. She went to the Comet outside her museum. Now she knew why Shaun had been captivated by it. He was literally its captive.
She climbed up onto the turret and spun the turret wheel. She thought it might be tight or welded shut, but it offered almost no resistance. The actual hatch was heavy, but also opened without too much effort. In the dim light of the turret interior and she saw his crumpled body, lying where it had fallen.
Apart from the awkward position, impossibly, instead of being a shrivelled mummy, Shaun looked like he was asleep. She felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Shaun, glowing with some inner light. He put his other hand on her cheek. So warm, instead of the cold touch she was used to.
“Thank you, Marelize. You kept your promise. You’ve set me free.” As before, he started to become hazy, and started to fade away.
“No! Not again! I found out. Don’t go!”
“Don’t worry, sweet Marelize. I’m not afraid now. I’m going to a good place. I will miss you, but I’ll wait for you.”
He kissed her, a faint warm tingle on her lips, then disappeared into a mist of glittering specks, which floated away in the breeze. Marelize looked down at his body, a dry, shrivelled husk, all that remained of a young soldier.
Copyright © 2023 by Quintin Snell
