Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #22 January 2016 | Page 14

machine oil in my nostrils. It is a weapon perfectly
suited to winter warfare, the low air temperature
meaning the barrel seldom needs changing despite its
enormous rate of fire. But the belt is empty. Looking
round I realise I am alone. Something covers over
my face. I jerk upright.

from the women’s cells. She has a black eye and two
broken fingers. We also all have matching tattoos on
our left biceps, an MG240 wreathed in rose briars.
Back in Kosygyn’s room we start drinking
again. Elsa produces a letter and reads it out to us.
It is from Mitchell. He writes how he is doing well,
working as a shoe-maker in the motherland, making
soldiers’ boots.

When I open my eyes, it is dark. Elsa and
Kosygyn are under the blankets of his bed, asleep,
bare arms and feet protruding. Suzi sits against the
far wall. Seeing me wake, she crawls over, a threequarters empty bottle in her hand and hits me in the
chest with it, her eyes accusing. I take a drink, the
neat spirit near tasteless, falls burning into my empty
stomach. She’s been crying. Suddenly I feel like it
too and we crawl into each other’s arms and weep
silently.

“I can’t imagine it,” I say. “I can’t see him.”
“Me neither,” Elsa says, refolding the letter.
We pass the bottle round. As I drink I realise
it’s not just an inability to imagine Mitchell in his
new life, I can no longer easily visualise civilian
existence at all: the city I was born in, my street,
my father’s face. The pictures in my head are like
postcards someone else has sent me. When I shut
my eyes all I can see is snow, black trees, greyon-grey armour. Snow creaks under my boots, the
rutted ground frozen, stars glitter in the freezing air.
Beside me the barrel of the MG240 is cooling, the
metal contracting, tick-tick-tick, the smell of hot

“I want to go home,” Suzi says.
“We will. Tomorrow,” I say.
one.

14

Our return journey to the front is a happy
To be Continued