“He always told us you were bound for better things then he had had, that you were too smart for the ocean, he said he would never let you set foot on a boat. Did he ever?” was all the captain said and knew by my face that he had me. Father had always left Mother and I ashore when he went on one of his voyages but I had always thought it was because he didn't want our company. It was why I grew so close to my mother, she was always the one there while my father spent most of my life a distant figure.
“Just the same, if he said some much of this to you then he could said some of it at home,” I said bitterly. I don't remember a time when I have talked like this, to anyone, it's far too personal, it must have been the stress. I think it was the stress that caused the captain to sit and talk to me to start with and reminiscing was just a form of relaxing, I should have thought of that and kept it pleasant, but it was far too sensitive of a subject.
“I think you should think over your life a bit more before you condemn your father,” the captain said, standing. “I think you've been looking at what he does the wrong way. I know it isn't always easy to read him but he isn't as bad as you think. He was a good captain, one of the best.”
Now that I am sitting here and writing all of this I am getting more and more indignant with the captain, just because my father was a good captain does not mean he was a good father and the captain has no business telling me that he knows more about my life then I do. I don't have time to be writing about this now though, we are over our target now and I am supposed to be writing to get things for my article, not thinking about personal things.
The men are preparing the bombs below us I am told, though I am not allowed down there because it might distract them. Instead I am allowed up here, where there are all of the buttons that will release the bombs when they are ready. I ask why they aren't just always ready, to save the trouble, and I am told that it would be too dangerous. Everyone is very patient with my questions here, unlike with the crew, but sometimes they look over at the captain so I wonder if he isn't behind it somehow.
Our bombs have been dropped, I looked down and saw the fire and dust billow up from beneath us. I don't know how I would feel if it had been a city but this time it was a military camp, which makes me feel alright. Soldiers kill one another and that is how war works, but children aren't paid to fight and I think I might have felt bad if we bombed one of their cities like they bomb ours. I have seen the results of some of the bombing runs they make on our city and I wouldn't like to feel even partly responsible for that sort of damage. This is my first taste of death just the same however, down below me there are men screaming me for help and in pain even if I can't hear them. There is a sort of detachment that is gained in this type of warfare, you can't see the people you are killing, you can't hear them, you just press a button and they die, you can almost make believe you have done nothing.
I take back what I just wrote, there is another battlefield here in the sky, one that has now come to us. Though I knew that not all of the fighting happened on the ground, I hadn't thought of it being an entirely different layer here in the air. No sooner did I think it was all over and lower my guard as the report came from the lookouts, enemy planes were after us. I had never actually seen a plane in action before, I have never had any interest in the air shows they appear at, or the cocky men who saunter around and make their livelihood endangering their lives in them. Now they were after us and I had to think of them as weapons that could shoot us down or catch us on fire, instead of toys to entertain the stupid populace.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment