Generals are not meant to be soft.
He was not soft. Certainly no one in his life had ever accused him of that and now with a war on, even less so. He held control and command of hundreds of pilots and base personnel, and generals like him were not meant to be soft. They could not be in the face of the enemy.
But time and fortune take everyone in the end.
It was the counting that finally did him in. He was not a mathematician, he studied history and language in school which gave him a fine head for strategy and communication but numbers never suited him. That was better left to his sister, only a few years behind him in school but faster than any calculator he knew. She was in a medical ward somewhere south of the Channel now, putting her use of numbers and French together to help with the war effort in her own way. No, numbers never suited him but he craved them now.
He couldn’t fly anymore, an injury in the early days of the war before he had climbed the ranks left him with a bent knee and a cane to hobble with. In fact, that was likely what led to his promotions, as he had been reassigned to desk duty when he had stumbled upon that wayward communication that led to the next action and the next mission and so on. But nevertheless, no matter the stars on his shoulder he was not allowed back up in the pilot seat.
There were days when he missed it of course, when he craved the feel of the world beneath his feet and the stars somewhere above his head. He ached for the sky like the sailors longed for the sea, a calling that he felt deep in his bones and singing in his blood. But that was a long time ago and he left the skies for other men to claim now.
So he was left with counting.
Almost worse than the counting was the waiting. Almost. The heavy silence that lay like a thick cloud over the airbase draped over everyone. The ambulance boys were more subdued, the tower and radio chatter quiet. All he could hear was the sound of his breath and his heart in his ears and the slow methodical ticking of the clock as the mission minutes dragged on. He could count the seconds if he wanted to, but there were other things he needed to count. And the silence and the stillness in the air kept them all suspended like butterflies in glass.
Then the first sounds of humming would filter through, shattering the glass, and then the phone was ringing as the tower radioed in the news. And he would look up from his cigarette that he always held unlit in his fingers as he waited and he would keep his eyes fixed towards the sky.
Now the counting could begin.
There was always hustling around the base as men rushed to their posts to await the first plane but he had ears only for engines. Like thunder upon the waves at sea they started rolling in. And he would count.
It was simple math really, a fixed number set out at the beginning of the day and a fixed number would return. It was up to him to handle the difference.
A simple subtraction problem he remembered from grade school: Jimmy had six bluebirds in his mother's garden but one day a cat came in and ate two of them, how many bluebirds did he have left?
So he counted and subtracted and when the total number was confirmed he would sit down at his desk and light his cigarette and stare up at the sky as the birds circled overhead to land.
There were some days where he didn’t need to light his cigarette, some days where he would heave a heavy sigh and close his eyes and gently tuck the slim cigarette back into its case. But more often then not he would need to reach for the little silver lighter that he kept with him in his breast pocket, the initials scratched onto the side were not his own, and he would hold the cigarette gently in his fingers and watch the smoke as it curled up into the sky. An offering to souls lost in the wind.
Yes, the counting was what eventually did him in.
Generals were not meant to be soft. But then again, men like him were not meant to be counting boys like birds.
I'm back! Happy spring everyone, and enjoy some slightly depressing fiction on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
:) Kathryn