On the Trail

He dressed in a hurry, jogged down the stairs to Mike’s old office, and knocked before entering what he and the guys had turned into a fully equipped sickbay. It smelled not of death, but of freshly cut lavender.
The half-drawn curtains allowed in a channel of watery sunshine, but a shadow fell across the bed, making Mike difficult to see. An oxygen cylinder released a gentle hiss of gas through the transparent, plastic mask strapped to Mike’s face. The jagged line of the heart rate monitor stuttered across the screen, the numbers showed a fast beat and rapid breathing. Behind the mask, Mike’s open mouth gasped for breath, his chest rising and falling in sharp jerks.
Close. Close to the end.
Kaine’s breath caught in his throat.

As he approached the bed, Lara—who’d been adjusting the levels on the machine that delivered pain meds—smiled down at Mike and rested a hand on his wasted shoulder. She backed away and stood near the door, watching. Clearly distraught.
Mike reached up a hand and pulled down the mask. He gasped something but the words didn’t carry over the oxygen cylinder’s hissing.
Kaine edged closer to the head of the bed and bent lower.
“What was that, Mike?”
“I … said … thanks for … for coming,” he repeated, the words punched out between gasps.
Sweat burst out on Mike’s forehead. The effort to speak must have been enormous.
“What else am I going to do when you call?” Kaine said, gently, and forced a smile onto an unwilling face. “But save your breath, Mike.”
Kaine took a damp cloth from a dish on the bedside table and dabbed Mike’s gaunt, grey face. The sunken cheeks and hollow eyes told a desperate tale. Close to the end but hanging on for no reason other than his innate stubbornness.

Mike grabbed the hand holding the cloth and tugged it away. Kaine let him. Mike’s eyelids fluttered and closed.
“It wasn’t … your … fault,” he said, straining out the words through dry, chapped lips.
“I know, Mike,” Kaine said, knowing exactly what he meant, but not believing a word of it.
“It wasn’t … your … fault,” Mike repeated with all the strength he could muster. His watery eyes opened and locked on Kaine’s. “It wasn’t. … Forgive yourself.”
“I have, Mike,” Kaine lied.
The dying chief petty officer shook his head. “You haven’t, but you … you must. It … It will … eat you up. What you’re doing … for The 83, is a good thing, but you need to leave time … time for yourself. Time for … Lara.”
A rock formed in Kaine’s throat. Hard. Choking. Mist blurred his vision. He couldn’t blink it clear.
“I will, Mike. I promise.”
“When … I’m … gone,” he said, “stay away. It’s too … dangerous. People will … come. Many people. Stay … away.”
“I know, Mike. Don’t worry. Rest yourself.”
Mike squeezed Kaine’s hand tighter.
“Closer,” he whispered. “Come … closer.”
Kaine bent lower, pushed his ear towards Mike’s mouth.
“I … I love … you, son. Be … be kinder to yourself.”
“Love you, too, old man,” Kaine gasped, the words driven through a restricted throat.
Mike’s thin lips stretched into the ghost of a smile. His eyes closed, his grip loosened, and the hand fell away.
“Mike?”

Kaine straightened. He snapped a look at Lara.
The jagged line on the heart rate monitor flattened and screeched a raucous warning. Lara stepped closer, reached out, and pressed a button on the machine. The alarm fell silent.
“Do something!” Kaine shouted.
Teary-eyed, Lara shook her head.
“Do something,” he repeated, the words broken. Shattered.
“No,” she said. “It’s time.”
“But—”
“Ryan, it’s time. Let him go.”
Kaine knew. Deep down, he knew.
He stood straight, pulled back his shoulders, and breathed deep and slow. He stared down at the once-vital form of his oldest friend, who lay in his bed, almost unrecognisable. He reached out but pulled his hand away.
He’d seen plenty of dead bodies in his time, but few had died peacefully, in their beds. Kaine hadn’t been there when his mother passed. He’d been away, fighting in some Godawful, half-forgotten backwater. But at least he’d held Mike’s hand at the end. Mike, who’d been a near-constant presence in Kaine’s life since long before his dad passed away. A second father. They’d served together, Mike and Kaine’s dad. Briefly.

Kaine rested a hand on Mike’s immobile chest.
“Goodbye, Mike,” Kaine gasped. “It was an … honour to know you.” Kaine couldn’t believe how well his voice held up to the emotion.
Lara put her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Go, Ryan,” she said. “Make us a cuppa. Let me look after him.”
Kaine stiffened. Pulled away.
“Sorry, what?”
“Tea,” she said and added a gentle nod. “I’ll look after him.”
“Oh, yes. I see.” He nodded and again tried to blink away the mist. “Two teas coming up.”
“Better make four,” she said. “Connor and Dele are already up and about.”
“Are they?”
She nodded. “Have been for a while.”
Kaine read the time from his diver’s watch. 09:31. He’d been asleep for ten hours straight. He frowned.
“And before you complain about not being woken,” she said, “you’ve been stretching yourself too much lately. I decided you needed your rest. Turned off the alarm.”
“Oh you did, did you?” he said, only partly annoyed.
“I did. Now tea.” She snapped out an arm and pointed towards the door.
“Doctor’s orders?”
“You’d better believe it, Marine.”
Kaine cast Mike a sad, parting look, nodded to him, and left the sickbay. Since Mike had asked for a closed coffin, Kaine would never see his friend again.

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