Rachel Dove

The Long Walk Back


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sliced with razor blades, so she kept them closed, focusing on the sound of the chopper blades and the feel of his steadying hand between hers. ‘I think my son is dead,’ she whispered. The hand squeezed tighter, and the tears kept flowing, silently running down onto her clothes, and their entwined hands.

      Hours later, Captain Thomas Cooper woke to the sound of the medic readying his gurney for moving. The chopper was still, and Coop could hear trucks nearby, people milling around the hangar. He looked across, but the seat was empty. His hand, still wet from her tears, was placed at the side of his body on the bed and as he flexed it, he felt something in his palm. Lifting his hand, he saw a piece of paper, ripped out of a notepad, the clumsy way it was torn causing a jagged edge, softer than the harder, neater edges. He recognised the handwriting from the walls of the hospital, from the notes written on chalk boards and white boards around the tent he had been housed in. He unfolded it fully, ignoring the medics milling around him, the groans of his comrades as they were moved gently, one by one. The note read:

      Thank you. I don’t deserve your kindness, but I will never forget it. Now you need to do something for yourself, you need to live. You need to fight, this is not the end for you. Please, for me, fight. Make this mean something.

      Kate

      Cooper refolded the note carefully, holding it tight. When the medic came back to move him, he looked at him enquiringly. ‘The doctor who was here, where did she go?’

      The medic, a young lad who looked like he had not slept in months, looked at him wearily.

      ‘She went home, Captain. Family emergency.’

      Cooper nodded. ‘Where’s home?’ he asked.

      The medic shrugged. ‘No idea, man. You ready to go?’

      Cooper sighed. ‘Sure, nothing else to do, have I? And it’s Captain to you.’

      The medic blushed. ‘Sorry Captain. Roger that.’

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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