. 02

Ch.17 : Roger Returns : Part 2

"I am tired. I must sleep soon," he said. "I cannot tell all of it as it should be told, but I must do so later or tomorrow."

"I can see that," she agreed holding him to comfort him. You must have some rest, but first you have told me about your leg. What of your arm? You fought again?"

"I will tell you quickly but there is more I wish to say later when I have rested. At the cave I soon grew stronger. The despair I had felt since the sacking of Shallas lifted from me and I began to enjoy my life again. Every day a different Priestess would make love to me, sometimes the same one. I began to know them as friends like yourself, although none could replace you in my heart. I began to see that I could love you all without guilt. I saw also that we invaders were wrong. I saw the mercy and friendship of Pirion. I also experienced the mercy and generosity of your people, for the second time, the first being my time with you here in Dalos. I had killed Priestesses who held only love for me and all men. Their only crime was to fight for an Empire in which real open love is celebrated. I soon came to detest my own crimes and those of my own countrymen. Without any persuasion by your sisters I was persuaded by what I experienced. Then I was filled with the desire to stop the war. I will tell you more of this tomorrow. To continue, I will just explain briefly how I came to return here. I and many others of the prisoners decided when we were reasonably healed to return to the Prancirian army to persuade them to end the fight. We were encouraged in this by the Priestesses but this was our own decision. We determined to return to our ranks but to persuade the soldiers around us to stop fighting. We did not really understand what we could do but we were determined to do something. When I and some of the others had recovered sufficiently after nearly three months we returned to Shallas. The army which entered the mountains had been heavily depleted, many taken prisoner and many killed but it had fought its way southwards and continued to campaign there. Another longer route avoiding the mountains had been chosen to supply them and continue the campaign. I now felt relief that the campaign was not highly successful, but fear that it continued. I felt fear for my companions in the army who risked their lives in such a wrongful struggle, and fear for the survival of the culture of the Empire of Pirion, which I have finally come to accept. Now I see it for what it is, not the evil self slavery and ignorant animality portrayed by our newspapers, but the genuine love and freedom of a culture where men and women can truly be the creatures of love that we all wish to be. I must not speak of everything because I need to sleep."

"There is no need," she whispered, "rest now."

"I must tell you a little more," he insisted. "We returned to Shallas claiming to the officers that we had been prisoners, wounded and set free after fair treatment. We told them nothing of our pleasures or that our sympathies now lay with those who had been our captors. We feared to be open because we would have been imprisoned by our own people or worse for such views. But neither did we hide that we had been well treated. We wished the officers to see that their enemies were more civilised than Prancir would have been, that we had no cause to hate them or make war on them. We considered it best to spread our opinions subtly amongst ordinary soldiers and officers, to talk closely only with individuals at first so that we might influence them and seek to persuade them if they were likely to share our views to act together when there were enough of us. We were particularly wary of officers who outranked us, but also of groups where we could not be sure of opinions.

"Some of us were sent quickly southward to rejoin our army, myself included despite my unfit leg. I talked to some men in Shallas and at the front but if they had not experienced the compassion and pleasures of the priestesses they were unlikely to believe the war should be ended. Even those who had enjoyed the pleasures of 'captured' Priestesses such as yourselves were unready to imagine the war to be unjust. There were many, most perhaps, who wished the war would end and wished to return to homes and families. Many have been with Priestesses and know Pirionites to be kind people. They feel no hatred towards you but have no reason to doubt the aims of our Government. They have faith that our Generals and the Government must have good reason to fight this war. Even if they cannot understand those reasons themselves they trust in the Government who pays them. They know this war makes Prancir more powerful, the assume that will be good for all Prancir's people. Few I spoke to were persuadable but there were some. Some took little persuasion before they would admit to disagreeing with the war. In those cases where I felt reasonably safer to reveal my full experience and my new knowledge I revealed my true hopes and motives. I was able to confirm their suspicions. To those who were not open to our ideas I was able sometimes to plant the seeds of doubt without revealing myself. All of us, those who had been prisoners and those whom we were able to persuade alike, became quickly disappointed. How were we to spread our message amongst the other soldiers and particularly among the officers and stop the war? Even if the officers of one platoon are persuaded against the war, what would they do. To abandon the fighting is to disobey orders, they would be dismissed and punished, perhaps severely. The troops under their control would be commanded by transferred officers, perhaps from our homeland, keen to perform better than their predecessors and advance their careers, to be more effective in defeating the enemy and to impress their superiors. Even if we were able to persuade a whole regiment to stop fighting it would be a mutiny. Other regiments might be ordered to attack us if we disobeyed orders."

"You could join the Empire of Pirion," said Sreela, her eyes glinting with the enthusiasm of the idea that Prancirian soldiers might be able to change sides in order to protect Pirion. Instead of sharing his despondency she saw possibilities which heartened her.

"It is one thing to encourage our soldiers to stop fighting innocent Pirion but they could not be encouraged to fight against their own countrymen. I could not do it myself. I am a part of this army. I have served in it for many years and looked after the soldiers in my care as best I could. I cannot therefore simply change sides and begin to attack them.

"If you could persuade a regiment to change sides you might help only to defend or to threaten intervention. You may not need to attack your fellow Prancirians. You could shift the balance of power."

"Do you realise how many more soldiers Prancir and the other Vanmarian states could send if they chose to. This is only a colonial war for us, but if our leaders choose they might conscript larger numbers of men. Mutineers would be forced to attack the army or they would be swamped by them."

"But Roger you must admit that it would be an option. Would you rather threaten arms against the troops of your homeland who are in the process of destroying a civilisation, which you now admit is more just than your own, or would you prefer to remain in an army which kills or imprisons innocent citizens of Pirion and seeks to destroy the personal pleasures which so many of Vanmar are denied. You must consider that it may be the better option to take. You do not know what effect such a mutiny might have upon your leaders. It may bring them to their senses. They may listen to you if you can carry enough soldiers with you. It might cause them to question whether the defeat of Pirion was worth the loss of soldiers to their command and the difficulty of fighting their own people."

"Perhaps you are right," Roger conceded. "But it is not possible yet. We have no whole regiments to command, only a few sympathisers here and there. Some of them are officers but many of them are only ordinary soldiers. To continue with my tale. We rejoined to our units to the south and there was more fighting as we attacked small towns and villages. The Pirionites defended well enough in places but our tactics are more successful, our methods more aggressive and brutal. I wished I had stayed in the hills as a prisoner for all the good I could do trying to undermine such a military machine as ours. I had dreamed with the other men of returning to Shallas and persuading droves of men to refuse to fight. Instead we were returned to the front and immediately found ourselves in the same situation as before, being forced to attack the innocent, unable to complain openly about the inhumanity of war. We might feel as the citizens of Pirion do now about sex and the human life, but as soldiers of Prancir we do just as we are told, keep our heads down, try not to think too hard, just as before.

"Before too long I had killed more priestesses, drafted like you in the emergency of war into the army of Pirion to defend their homes, women who I wanted to reach out and hold, instead of to shoot. Women who would have made love to me if I could only ask them, if we had not been staring down the barrels of guns at each other. Women who would have healed me again if I had fallen before them and been captured. I shot Pirionite men also. Real soldiers trained to shoot but who prefer the pleasures of life to the horrors of war, men who have been forced into this horror because the leaders of Vanmar wish to make money out of their lands, and their electors and supporters are too ill informed to understand the real reasons why this war is being fought. I wanted to leave my own lines and take refuge as a prisoner with the other side, leaving the horrors of war behind. But of course that would have been too dangerous. If I had not been shot by the men and women of Pirion I might have risked being shot by my own side. I had tasted peace again in the hills and the real passions of life. Then why was I here again amidst the horrific slaughter of war? I could not understand why I had escaped from war and then volunteered to return. My hopes to end this war had so far come to nought for myself and for Pirion. I lived without pleasure during those days. I hated everything including myself. I blamed myself for my failure to do anything constructive towards ending the war."

"I was in contact with some of my fellow sympathisers. One of them at least had already been killed in the fighting. We talked occasionally during rare private moments of dire despair. We tried to make plans but there were not enough of us to seize control of even a unit. One of them suggested we all try to make a run for the hills to rejoin the Pirionites and to join them in their struggle. Some of us would not fight against our own Prancirians. Most of us could see little advantage we could bring to the Pirionites by that means. Some of us liked the idea merely for the selfish reason that we wished to enjoy the Priestesses while Pirion's ancient culture yet survived. We concluded that we ought to try to do something of practical value for the Pirionite defenders. That had been our original purpose in returning to the Prancirian lines when we might have stayed and joined Pirion's people. Besides, returning to the Pirionite ranks would not have brought respite from war for ever. By joining them in the war again we would have been expected to fight for them, on the side which still appeared to be losing. We would be pushed from cave to cave or town to town risking our lives as the old culture was destroyed. We concluded that we should try to sabotage the effectiveness of the Prancirian army as much as possible without being discovered. Those of us in authority might take wrong decisions or attack areas which the Pirionites could hold. We could attempt to slow down the advance of our army by bureaucratic interventions by sabotaging our own supplies, if possible by enabling the transfer of useful supplies to the Pirionites. This approach would be most difficult because we might cost more Prancirian lives, but we reasoned that sometimes we might have to face these decisions as we would at the same time be saving Pirionite life. We determined that this would be our strategy from now on. We could do more good to the Pirionite cause by remaining with the Prancirian army and slowing its progress than by escaping to join the Pirionites. I was able to do very little along these lines before I was again wounded, this time in my arm by a Pirionite bullet, which has rendered it useless at the moment. Luckily I received good Prancirian treatment quickly and my arm was saved, and I am told it will return to some use although it will never regain its former strength."

"I was sent back to Shallas with other wounded, and given some leave until it recovers. In Shallas there was no room for me in the hospitals and I made up my mind to return to Dalos, to see if you were still here and well looked after. I took the train northwards but it was full and there was no seat for me. After two hours the train halted. The track had been sabotaged. It seems Pirion is at last finding ways of fighting back. Most decided to wait for carriages or the track to be mended but many decided to begin the walk instead of suffering a long and possibly overnight stop. So I joined them, walking as best I could with the limp. I fell behind the main body with the stragglers, soon becoming tired and hungry. But we knew Dalos was not far away so we kept going. So I have walked all morning and that is the immediate reason for my exhaustion."

Sreela looked at him again. He had not shaved for many days for his beard was long and bushy. Beneath the beard the exhaustion of a morning's walking was apparent but there was more. His wounds had left him weakened, but she was sure he had aged more because of the worry and despair of the war.

"Your beard? Has it not been cut?"

"I have had little time for beards and my arm is useless. I kept a beard at the front and the hospital at the front was too busy to concern itself with trimming beards." He was apologetic as if he knew himself to have declined as a man in the months since he had seen her. He had no right to assume that she should hold any responsibility for him. She was effectively a prisoner of the Prancirians still. She was not free to return to her people. They had been together in those few weeks and he had viewed her as a wife in most things. He had treated her as his possession although he had a wife at home. He had seen nothing wrong in having another before and certainly did not now. It was good for people of either sex to have as many close relationships as they desired. She had helped him to realise that, and at the cave he had come to appreciate how right that was. But he had viewed her as a Prancirian would view his wife. She may not have understood his attitude towards her, what was in his head. But he had viewed her as a woman he had claimed, like a prize of war, a reward for his sufferings. He had allowed her to be a Priestess, to be a prostitute for the Prancirian army, so his ownership had not been absolute, much as he had probably wished her to be his only. He was pleased that he had not tried to prevent her from being what her culture had forged her to be, but it had been in his head. He had felt she belonged to him. Perhaps it was this feeling that she was wanted by him almost exclusively that had drawn her to him and allowed her to accede to his claim upon her.

Now she had been free of him for months. Surely she would not want him back as they had been before, particularly broken and wounded as he felt himself to be. How could she find this tired man attractive? He knew she would treat him well. That was the duty and the nature of a Priestess but would she want him to be close to her as they had been before. He was not confident, even as she cradled him and listened to his woes. As High Priestess she had a Pirionite duty to hope that Pirion could survive this war. She would wish to talk to him about these matters for that reason in particular, but would she wish to share him as they had before. He doubted but hoped, he could only offer.

As conversation ebbed away Sreela became aware again of his need for rest. She was glad after talking to him about such important matters. They had known each other so well during that time when he had been here before that she felt great gladness at the return of an old friend. He felt as close to a Partner as she had ever felt with a man. And yet before he had not treated her entirely as a confidant. Military matters he had kept hidden from her except for simple gossip and trivial comments. They had talked of the war then and she had sensed even then that this was not a war he really wanted to fight. This was a war fought under orders from his government, and loyally he had fought in it as any soldier would without question. But she had seen then that he had no personal feelings against the Pirionites. He had treated her and the Priestess well, with humanity, kindness and humour. He had respected their customs and habits. There had always been thoughts he held back however. He had preferred to say little about his wife and children in Prancir, nor any criticisms of the Generals or the war policy had ever passed his lips. So to hear him now, bearing his wounds as he rested in her arms, had thrilled her. Now she could appreciate the full man within Roger, the man she had perhaps suspected lay within. He was a man whose conscience was strong within. He questioned the world around him and its leaders. His experiences near Shallas had pulled the veils from his eyes and from his heart and now he was a complete man, honest to himself and to Sreela, even if he could not bare his soul before the officers and the Generals of the Prancirian Army.

Despite his wounds and his tiredness, the ageing of his appearance by the experiences he had suffered, she found she still felt a strong passion for this man. War had brought them together by accident, she as his prisoner. At first she had wanted the security and compassion he had offered, partly because she was still afraid of the Prancirians and recognised him as a Prancirian who could protect her and the Priestesses. She had liked his looks and his body, as she would many men, but his kindness and the security he offered had been the factors which bound her to him. As she had grown more comfortable with her situation she had liked him more for his own sake. As they had been speaking her sympathy for him had been joined with affection and again passion which she still felt. His story showed him to be a real man who could be admired for caring about the people and events taking place around him. The Priestess in his capture had given him every reason to question the war and his masters, and he had faced those questions admirably like a man should. Caught in a difficult situation between the military authorities who held the powers of money and military discipline he had done his best to influence the course of the war, and she had faith in him that he would continue to make the attempts to end this war. She could hear in his voice that he really did care and not just for himself. There was something about men who really cared about the wider world which she could love. He deserved her love and she felt able to give it again. The magnetism of his soul reached out to embrace her. Her thighs seemed to glow and hear heart beat swifter at the recognition that his soul was strong. She felt her nipples begin to stiffen, aching with her need on this quiet day. She knew she must repress her desires for the moment. This man needed sleep badly. Later she would return to him to let nature take its course. Her tongue came out unconsciously, touched her upper lip, moistening it. She brought her lips to his again in her desire to show her feelings towards him. She began to flick her tongue in his mouth and then over his face, his nose, his neck. She was aware of him staring at her, his eyes flicking towards her breasts where she had allowed her robe to open. He took these as signs that she wished to renew their old closeness and was grateful.