Last Orders

Ray

He looks at me straight and steady, so straight and steatty? that my own face must be all a-quiver in comparison. think, You have to sit straight and still for your final trait, no shifting, no pretending, no ducking out. Then says, like he can see what's in my head, like he sees the? question I want to ask, 'People panic, Raysy. You don't evwf want to panic.

It's like what they said in the war. Number one rule for soldiers: Don't panic. Though I never understood how votl! could lay that down as a command, you can't command a man not to believe that fire'll burn him. Except Jack used to put it into working practice. Like when we ran into that ' trouble outside Sollum and that lieutenant, Crawford, is lying there suddenly like a bloody rag, with his next-in-line yelling, 'What do I do? What do I do?' and Jack says, 'What you have to do, sir, is assume command. If you don't, I will.' And I'm thinking, I'm bleeding glad I don't have to assume command, I'll settle for being commanded.

I suppose that's what he's doing now, assuming command, taking charge of himself.

I say, 'It's a tough one, Jack, it's a tough one.' Like I'm not talking about the thing it is, like it's just an extra tricky test you come out of afterwards.

He says, 'It'll be tougher for Amy.' Looking at me straight and steady. 'If you ever get the choice, Raysy, if you ever get the option, you go first. It's carrying on that's hard. Ending aint nothing.'

I say, 'Well, it aint an option I've got, is it? I mean, if anyone has. Seeing as there's just me.'

He looks at me. 'You never know. Still I reckon I'm lucky, being the first.'

'No, I'm Lucky.'

He doesn't smile, it's not like the old joke. I'm not lucky, you're Lucky. He looks at me. His eyes are like they don't miss nothing, his face is like you can't not look at it. I think, I've seen him most of my life, but now I'm seeing him. I'm not seeing Jack Dodds, quality butcher, Smithfield and Bermondsey, or Jack Dodds care of the Coach and Horses. I'm not even seeing Big Jack, Desert Rat, Private Jack of the Cairo Camel Corps. I'm seeing the man himself, his own man, private Jack, who's assumed command.

He says, 'It'll be harder for Amy. She'll need looking after.'

I say, 'She'll be here any minute. With Vincey.'

'I aint got much for her to be getting on with.'

I look at what he has got. A bed, a bedside cabinet. I reckon he hasn't got much more now than June's had all her life.

I say, 'If there's anything I can do, Jack.'

His hand's lying spare, empty, on the blanket and I see the fingers curl just a bit. Then his eyes close. The lids just roll down of their own accord like a shutter, like the eyes on that doll I bought Sue years ago one Christmas. Just for a moment it's like— Don't panic, don't panic. But his chest heaves. The swelling round his operation scar dips and rises.

I look at his face, at his hand lying on the blanket. I think, Everyone has their own space and no one else can step in it, then one day it's unoccupied. It's a question of territory.

He opens his eyes. It's as if he's been tricking me and he's been watching all along, through the slits, to see if I'm a different person when I think I'm not being looked at. But the lids open slowly. You see the whites before you see the whole eye.

He says, 'Still here, Lucky? Yes, there is something you can do for me. How lucky do you feel?'