A Dangerous Act of Kindness

by L.P. Fergusson

thumped in, like a blow on a bruise. How many months had

Golden Labrador

He did get up, eventually. He made it all the way down to the barn in Wigstan Combe.

There must have been moments of tenderness between her and Jack but all she could recall was her coldness towards him, her irritation as he shut down his emotions, one after another. If only she’d realised the depth of his despair, she could have taken him in her arms and comforted him. She would carry the ugly scar of omission for the rest of her life.

Curious the things you remember, she thought, the way time curves and pulls images in odd directions.

Sitting next to her, slumped against a bale, was a man, one arm held awkwardly by his side, the other pointing a service revolver at her head.

His features were regular but his mouth was extraordinary, his lips outlined as sharply as if he’d been carved in stone, his lower lip much fuller than she’d seen on a man before.

But if she did that, abandoned another man in his hour of desperate need, her guilt would crush her. This time she wasn’t too late. This man was still alive. Jack never gave her that chance.

She never saw Jack again. At first she had a desperate need to know he was really dead, to understand the terrible mystery that surrounds a life passing; soon it became an agonising guilt that, having failed to make his life worth living, she even failed to say goodbye.

He lifted his head, his face slack and weary and she felt the strangest jolt of recognition, as if she’d known him much longer.

there’s an enemy airman in my kitchen. What the hell am I doing?

The British prided themselves on their humanity towards their enemies. Surely that was all she was doing?

one life saved, he’d said. Shame he didn’t value his own life as highly.

Before taking her hand away, she moved his hair from where it clung, damp against his forehead. Her instinct to soothe was immediately followed by a pang that she’d been too familiar, too intimate but his breath stopped hissing through his teeth and she felt no need, or desire, to take her hand away.

His eyes, instead of being filled with pain, glowed with an intensity that took her breath away.

He shut his eyes momentarily and prayed, dear God, let her not be a widow. Let him not be one of those poor souls we strafed and bombed on the French beaches.