The events in this story follow immediately after another story, Armistice Day. However, you don't need to read Armistice Day to enjoy this one. It is a 'slow burn' as they say around here, where people take time before jumping into bed with one another. Consequently, usual caveats apply, Prussian Blue is no quickie. But read on if you dare, and if you do, I hope you enjoy this tale!
© 2021 Thefireflies, for Literotica
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Outside the carriage window is the land of my dreams; rolling hills and cattle and gum trees, giving way to houses on stumps with long verandas and roofs of iron baking and rusting in the sub-tropics. In the living nightmares of the past few years this is the place I've longed for, wondering if I'd ever return, my valley safe from the horrors of war, my home.
The locomotive huffs and puffs, slowing, out the window a couple of kites swirl and hover in the indifferent blue sky as they hunt beside the tracks. A house here and there is in disrepair, yards overgrown like their owner up and walked away.
When the train stops, the act of grabbing my canvas kit-bag from under my seat and standing provokes an involuntary groan. Following my three fellow passengers, I'm stepping into the bright afternoon light and wall of humidity.
On the platform the station master's instructing a young porter who's manoeuvring an empty cart into position beside the train, and he looks up, our eyes connecting, his hand shooting to his mouth, beads of sweat running down his red face.
"G'day, Mr Forsyth," I say.
"Oh, my, Alfred Graham," he says, his accent thickly Scottish, eyes wide. "Oh, my, laddie, you're back. Your mother and father will be more than pleased."
Swallowing, I say, "I, um, I heard about Walter. I'm sorry."
"Aye," Mr Forsyth says, his eyes downcast.
"By all accounts his bravery saved many of his mates."
"Aye, they gave him a Distinguished Conduct Medal."
Posthumously, of course. What do you say to a father who's lost his son to the war? "He was a mate of mine."
"Aye, I know." Mr Forsyth looks away, ignoring the young porter who's now looking to his boss for instruction.
Walter Forsyth, my fellow opening bowler for the district cricket team, was in a different battalion, but we were in the same battle at a place called Messines, where I'd heard the story from other men, of how Walter silenced a machinegun threatening his platoon, allowing his comrades to storm the enemy trench, where he was fatally shot soon after.
His father's clearly struggling to hide his grief and when I place my hand gently on his shoulder he says, "I s'pose we won so his death wasn't in vain."
I find myself nodding, knowing neither of us believes the sentiment, because the cost in lives has outweighed the victories. "We'll get the lads together and put up a grand memorial for the boys who didn't make it."
"There's more than a few who aren't coming home." His voice is almost a whisper. He turns to his porter, quietly telling the young lad to move the luggage cart up the platform.
Walking through swirling steam coming from the black locomotive, I think how it was four years previously, late in nineteen-fourteen, when I last stood on this very spot. Walter Forsyth wasn't with us then, but his father had spoken to us, having a laugh as was his way while he went about his business running the station.
With a heavy heart I wonder how many other faces are missing. Leaving the station, the Commercial Hotel looms in front of me, like a beacon. In the past I was a boy and prevented from drinking alcohol in a public house by law, and only ever set foot inside the building with my father.
I was barely old enough to go to war and now I'm old enough to drink and I'm tempted, wondering if I were to walk through the door, would my mates be there drinking and laughing as if the past four years were a bad dream?
Would my three cobbers who I'd joined up with be there; Will Eichstaedt and the O'Riordan twins, Mick and Francis? And would old Arthur Coleman be taking the piss out of young Walter Forsyth before getting drunk and telling us we were like sons to him?
Nope, there's only three old cow cockies I don't recognise sitting at tables on the veranda with glasses filled with liquid amber. Shit, I could do with a beer, wanting so badly to share a drink with my mates who will never grow old. Jesus...
"Christ almighty," someone booms from the darkness of the pub's doorway and I reckon I've jumped near three feet in the air. "Who let this stick with a prick back to town?"
The voice must be in my head, a ghost, but sure enough the he steps from the pub into the sunlight, my heart leaping, almost bursting. "Bloody Mick O'Riordan, I was just thinking about you, you bastard, I thought you were dead, this must be a dream!"
"Yer wost bloody nightmare come true more like it," Mick says, limping down the steps in a jiffy and I've stuck out my hand, but the nugget brushes it aside and scoops me up in a hug, squeezing the living daylights out of me before dropping me back on my feet. "How ya goin', cobber, orright?"
Behind his scruffy thick black beard he's grinning from ear to ear, at least he would if he wasn't missing his right ear, the rest of his face covered in scar tissue, including covering his missing right eye, and I might have once gagged at the sight of him but I've seen much worse.
"Matey, I'm orright, how about ya-self."
"Fuckin' brilliant now you're comin' in for a drink and I ain't takin' no for an answer." He's snatched my kit-bag and turned, limping up the stairs. I follow and a few blokes I don't recognise nod. Mick sits at the bar, dropping my bag on the empty stool to his right and he's holding two fingers to the publican, ordering drinks. There's another man to his left, a little bald fella, and I take my kit-bag, dropping it to the floor so I can sit. "They're out of the good whisky because of the fuckin' war, so you'll have to make do with the shit Danny here distils."
The publican frowns, telling Mick, "I've told you watch your language, son, and if you don't pull your head in quick smart you'll be out on your arse quicker than lightning."
"All I'm sayin' is yer whisky ain't as good as the finest drop from Ireland and Scotland." He turns to me, whispering, "Not even close to their worst drop either, but it's all he has for now. Not even close to the sly grog me and Francis used to make down the back paddock."
When Mick mentions his twin I reckon he flinches and I see it in his eyes and he sees it in mine. Francis and Mick, inseparable from the moment of conception, separated forever by a German artillery shell.
Danny the barman nods at me, handing over the glass of clear liquid. "I'll warn ya, Alfred, you and Michael best go easy because he's on his last warning and your old man won't be impressed if I have to give him a call."
"Jesus," Mick's saying, "Alfie here survived more battles than you've seen women's privates and yer already threatening to call his dad to take him away! S'pose his old man were to hear about yer little backyard still?"
"I'm warning you, O'Riordan, you'll be out on your ear if you don't shut it."
Mick mumbles something as the publican glares and moves away to the bald man down the bar from us. We get stuck into the grog, the liquid burning my throat and irritating my airways, sending me into a coughing fit.
"Told ya it's pretty fuckin' bad," Mick says, dryly.
Between coughs, I tell him, "Think I'll stick to beer."
"Normally I'd say wise choice, but this shit's all that keeps me asleep at night, and then not always."
"Jesus..."
"Nah, he don't visit me and I don't visit him either, much to Father Maloney's disappointment. Reckons I'm goin' ta hell, but I told him I've been there and the devil didn't want me but the bastard took me blessed brother instead...fuck I need another drink."
"Mate, everything alright?"
"Everything's as peachy as it can be, cobber, so don't you worry about me...hey, Danny, another of your rotgut and a beer for Alfie and I'll keep yer little secret, ay."
"You and I'll have words, Michael," Danny says with a frown, but he hands over the drinks, the beer cold from a keg evidently kept on ice.
We clink glasses, Mick saying, "This one's for Francis," and we drain our drinks, my beer refreshing, sliding down quick.
Our next drink is for Will, then another for Walter and another for Arthur. We could go on like this into the evening, naming blokes we knew from our valley here or other's we served with. But my stamina flags and something's bugging me. Looking down at the timber bar, I tell Mick, "I was with Will..."
"Yer what, mate?"
"We'd done a trench raid and a Jerry tried to stick Will with his bayonet, but the blade caught up in Will's respirator. When we got back to our lines he showed us the damage. I guess he never found time to get a new one before they dropped gas on us."
"Shit..."
"Will made sure other blokes put their nose bags on...I kept telling him to put his on...he, ah, told me to find Mary and tell her he loves her...and, um, to make sure she and Jack are..."
Bitting my bottom lip, I can't go on, and Mick whispers, "Christ, he knew his time was up didn't he? And what about you?"
"Sucked down my fair share the stuff before I got me mask on. Chlorine, fucked me lungs up, can't run or do other physical shit without it burning and making me cough like a bastard. Cold nights set me off too, like when drinking the shit you call whiskey here. Been in a hospital for the past year in England and just spent a month down in Melbourne."
"Fuck...I didn't know."
"I ain't told anyone. Anyway, I need to see Mary and tell her."
