(no subject)
Title: Pro Patria Mori
Rating: PG
Word Count: Just over 3,000
Notes: A couple of peeps from crimeandcricket wanted to know what happened to Bunny post Knees of the Gods. This is my twist on the tale. It turned out both significantly angstier and fluffier than I'd originally intended...
Summary: Bunny never claimed to be a reliable narrator. Not by a long shot.
"It's not only been the best time I ever had, old Bunny, but I'm not half sure-"
Of what I can but guess; the sentence was not finished, and never could be in this world.
I placed my pen down, not entirely surprised to find that the tears which had gathered in my eyes as I wrote the last few paragraphs had finally spilled over.
Of course, Raffles would choose that very moment to enter the study to enquire after my progress. I knew better than to attempt to hide my face: nothing escapes Raffles.
"Whatever is the matter, Bunny?" he asked, concerned.
"I've just killed you." I said, knowing he would need no further explanation.
He shook his head in fond amusement. "Silly rabbit."
"I know, I know." I chuckled through my tears, dashing them away with the back of my hand. "At least I've finally managed to write it."
"May I?" He asked.
I handed over the papers and he went to the window for better light. I sat, feeling inexplicably anxious as I awaited his judgement. I suppose it is not every day that a man has the chance to critique his own death. Happily, I was amply rewarded for my patience.
"This is superb stuff, Bunny! Convincing isn't the word for it. Why, I'd almost believe it myself if it wasn't for the evidence to the contrary."
I smiled at that. "You think it will pass?"
"I know it will. And bring in the pounds, too." He returned my pages to the desk and, standing behind me where I sat, bent to envelop me in his arms.
"Now that you're finally finished," he said against my neck,"what say we head into town for a night of celebration? You could certainly do with a break."
"I'd love that. Just... give me some time to compose myself."
"Of course." He said, and gently bit at my ear. I shivered. "Let me know when you're ready", he said as he left the room, grinning.
*
Of all my tales of our adventures, The Knees of the Gods was by far the most difficult story I had written: harder than any before or since. It had taken me weeks to complete, whilst others would take me days, sometimes mere hours.
Raffles's death in the line of duty was a particularly taxing scene. And yet he had died in front of me many times before: in his rooms at the hands of Crawshay, in the sea off the coast of the island of Elba, in the dingy flat of Dr. Theobald's, of an unknown ailment. Each time he had come back to me, alive as only A.J. Raffles could be, which is to say more alive than many of this world, myself included.
This time I had penned his death knowing full well that the very words themselves were my own fabrications: this time it was I, not Raffles, who hoodwinked the world into believing in his own untimely demise. How I hated it. And yet, it was necessary to complete the deception begun by Raffles himself, that fateful day over five years ago. Although Raffles's very survival would appear to expose my entire tale as one great falsehood, the story in fact sticks closer to the truth of the particular situation than any other of mine to date.
*
Since Raffles and I had first settled in his beloved Australia, we had lived a simpler life than any I had previously known - simpler even than those happy few months we spent together in Ham Common, before the war ripped up the tentative roots we had been forming and changed everything. A couple of middle-aged colonists living together in the outback, away from the gossip and scandal of the town and cities. Sometimes I tire of the loneliness of the place, and yearn for the plays and restaurants, the noise and bustle of London, of Piccadilly and Mayfair. But they are sacrifices I have easily made because it means having Raffles by my side.
We had settled on the outskirts of a small town with the fitting name of Arthur's Creek, in Victoria. It is, incidentally, not too far from the area where Raffles, some fifteen years earlier had enacted his first audacity on the area's National Bank. At first, we made our living primarily as hands for hire, working long sultry days in the apple orchards and vineyards, (Raffles working twice as hard to make up for my own physical shortcomings), occasionally riding out to the next farmstead to help with the livestock. We were perceived as simple townsfolk-turned-colonials come over from London to make our fortune. The work was hard but satisfying in its repetitiveness and I was pleased to find myself physically fitter than at any time in my past.
Raffles fell into this new routine with the same ease he did with anything else. It never ceased to surprise me: after all we had been through, and despite all the times he had made it clear that simple domesticity was to be detested, he didn't simply cope with this new slower pace of life: he revelled in it. On our days off he could be found watching amateur cricket at the town's ground (he never lifted a finger to play himself, but was simply happy to watch and bellow recommendations from the stands) and spent the evenings trying his hand at cards in the neighbouring public houses. Rarely, when things were too pleasant even for his liking, we would ride out of a night and return laden down with coins or notes. Our landlord would comment on our "winnings" and sometimes we would take him out for a drink or five to celebrate our new-found prosperity. Despite the two of us having full-time honest employment for the first time in our lives, we were not above using the skills of our true vocation on occasion: Raffles would often insist that we should not let them become rusty through disuse. All in all, it was a pleasant retirement for two tired men in their thirties, and sometimes in the dead of night I would thank the stars that we had been given this reprieve. What either of us had done to deserve this, I knew not and cared less. All I knew was that Raffles was in my arms and all was right with the world.
*
How he laughed at me. He had had his innings; there was no better way of getting out. He had scored off an African millionaire, the Players, a Queensland Legislator, the Camorra, the late Lord Ernest Belville, and again and again off Scotland Yard. What more could one man do in one lifetime? And at the worst it was the death to die: no bed, no doctor, no temperature-and Raffles stopped himself.
"No pinioning, no white cap," he added, "if you like that better."
"I don't like any of it," I cried, cordially; "you've simply got to come back."
"To what?" he asked, a strange look on him.
An exchange that my hand refused to record for days. It is a strange thing, but I find the closer to life the story, the harder it is to set down. It is the lies that flow naturally from my pen: the charm, the good deeds, the fun and the adventure. I can make the two of us admirable, even heroic if I choose. This is the beauty of fiction. With a nod to the mores of my readers, I create a world in which it was a young desperate man called Jack Rutter who murdered the loathsome usurer Baird, a world in which Lord Ernest Bellville fell to his death due to his own misjudgement. A world where my dear Raffles' former amour Jacques Saillard is a woman with a man's name.
But whatever I write, and however I write it, I cannot re-write my memories of the winter in Ham Common. I will never forget how he looked when he had announced his intentions to enlist in South Africa, the strange glint of his eyes made me tell him that he had to come back. The look he gave me, and his response had chilled me to the bone. I had not been brave enough to give the answer I so desperately wished to give him, afraid more than anything that "to me" could never be enough. If I had known then what I know now, perhaps I should not have been so hesitant.
*
And so we come at last to that fateful day on Spion Kop: I feel that I should separate truth from lies, if not for posterity, then for my own sanity and peace of mind. It is true that I was hit in the thigh and am consequently lame for life. It is true that Raffles came immediately to my aid, and that we were fired upon by a Boer who was determined to hit Raffles. It is true that Raffles, whilst careful enough with me, neglected his own safety to the point that even in my distracted state, it seemed to me that he was courting death.
Raffles, despite his faults, is a patriot to the core and it was no twist of the truth to depict him fully willing to die for his country. In fact, he was more than simply willing: in the face of his imminent exposure and the return to England, the long drawn out trial, the possibility of imprisonment, death must have seemed a reprieve - I would go so far as to suggest it seemed a tempting redemption for his sins, if I knew Raffles would not scoff and, with a twinkle in his eye, call me a fanciful, blasphemous romantic. Still, dulce et decorum est. Even the possibility of a pardon due to services rendered to his country was not enough to sway him from his desired course: whether imprisoned or pardoned, the infamy would be the end of A.J. Raffles, and he knew it. He could never have abided being scrutinised by the public gaze for long.
It could have gone one of two ways, that day. Raffles was fully prepared to die a hero's death, and both he and I knew it. Despite, or perhaps because of my injury, I saw all this and more, the alternating pain and numbness, the noise of the battlefield honing my mind to a clearer understanding: I seemed to see all through Raffles eyes. But I also saw another option. I saw the empty life he thought he now faced and saw also that I needed to prove to him that there was hope, that there were other options, ones which did not involve him losing everything, that there was excitement and adventure in the world still.
I had warned him, asked, even begged him to keep his head down but he continued to speak in that jovial tone. I closed my eyes, behind them, images of him getting his way as he nearly always did swam before my eyes, of the horror of him being hit too, of me accompanying a coffin back home in place of my beloved Raffles. And suddenly through the noise and pain and stinging numbness, my mind was set. I had waited too long, very nearly left it too long, and if I didn't act now it would be too late. I just hoped that my reason to carry on, to fight, could be his reason too. Raffles has always been a man of action, and I would have a better chance with actions, not words, if I wanted to get through to him.
"Raffles" I said, surprised at how steady my voice was.
"It's no use telling me to keep my head down, Bunny. I can barely spot the blighter as it is."
"Raffles", I said again.
He crouched down to get a better look at me, serious all of a sudden. "What is it Bunny? Feeling worse?"
"No." I said. I opened my eyes, forced myself to sit up a little and reached out for him. He leant over me, concern in his eyes. It was then that I pulled him down and brought our mouths together.
I do not exaggerate to say it was the most singular experience of my life: lying wounded on a battlefield with the noise and the smoke and the heat, bullets flying and Raffles kissing me back as if our shared wellbeing depended on it. Which, in my books, it did.
Eventually he pulled away, and I watched as a change came to his expression, the underlying grim determination that had left its mark on his face months before melting away as he stared down at me. Then without a word, he picked up his rifle and continued his distant duel with this unknown foe all he was worth, no more of his forced joviality in the face of enemy fire. This time he kept his head well below our cover, only repeatedly breaking cover for a fraction a second to aim and fire before ducking down again.
"Got him!" He cried, at last."Right in the face." He looked down at me. "Bunny, do you trust me?"
"Always, A.J." I said through the pain and the elation.
"I have a plan." He spoke quickly and insistently. "If it works and I am not captured, you will see me again. However, it is possible that I won't succeed in it: even if I get away with clean heels I may be apprehended later on. Either way, once I leave this cover, I won't return. You must bear the pain: someone will find you." I nodded, teeth clenched.
"Bunny," he continued, "once I am gone, you must do two things, and do them without question. Firstly, if you are required to identify the body of A.J. Raffles, say that it is me, even if the wretch looks nothing like me. Secondly, if, in several months time you receive a telegram bidding you to travel to some godforsaken corner of the known world, do so and without question. He looked down at me. I will wait for you." He kissed me again and then, taking up his rifle, he scrambled around the rock that was our shelter and left me. That was the last I saw of him for nearly ten months.
As he said, I was found faint with exhaustion and loss of blood, and carried, dazed, off the battlefield. I was treated in the field hospital and, again, as he said, taken to identify the suspected lifeless body of my friend. The body was indeed dressed in the uniform that Raffles had been wearing: torn at the knee as his had been. There was dried blood on the cuff that I believed was mine: stained while he had bandaged me. I do not know why they thought I would be able to identify the body: the face had been obliterated by a bullet, or perhaps several of them. I dutifully told them it was Raffles, then had to turn away and empty my stomach. I believe, even knowing it was not Raffles, that the sight of that faceless body will stay with me for a long time.
I returned to London, weary and in pain, hope that Raffles was still alive gradually turning to despair as the months dragged with no word from him. I had always trusted his ingenuity to get himself out of a tricky situation, but the situation had been more dire than usual. How could he have escaped unnoticed across the veldt? Could he have fallen victim to a stray bullet? Could he have been captured by the Boers? By our own side? The penalty for desertion is death by firing squad, yet I had heard no news that this had been his fate.
I was sure I would know if he had been caught. Surely the news would be reported in the English papers, no doubt with typical morbid enthusiasm. Surely I would somehow know if some ill had befallen Raffles. A feeling in my gut, a pain in my heart? It would seem impossible that after all we had shared, there could be no discernable bond, if not of the heart, then at least of the soul?
Ten months had passed and I had begun to make peace with the likelihood that I would never see Raffles again, In my misery I had been spending my army pension prodigiously. I continued to wait for him, going about my dull, respectable-enough life with little enthusiasm. I socialised with no one, and took pleasure in little beyond the occasional old familiar vices of gambling and drink. Then the telegram arrived.
FRIDAY 21 JUNE STOP FLINDERS ST STATION MELBOURNE VICTORIA STOP WILL WAIT ALL DAY IF NEED BE MY DEAR RABBIT STOP AND THE NEXT STOP
I won't say what my reaction was. I'm sure it can be guessed. However, I used up what little savings I had left to book a one way ticket to Australia, booking myself a cabin aboard a ship that would leave the very next week. The journey would take nearly two months and in that time I ran over all the things I would say to Raffles when we met, imagining our joyful reunion. But they were mere fleeting shadows in the face of the overwhelming mingled desire and relief I felt when we embraced, that fateful day, the date of which will be stamped forever on my mind. That night, too, will be one I will never forget.
*
Now that I have found my success, we live solely on the profits of my writing. We have stolen nothing in the last three years, done next to nothing to draw attention to ourselves here. We live as quietly as the unremarkable men we pretend to be. If the mischief has been tempered somewhat in Raffles, I believe it is because he is truly aware now of what could be lost.
I write my stories, I send them to my friend and literary executor in London, a woman who had once been my almost-fiancée, a woman who knows that I, heartbroken by my friend's death, could simply no longer face London, but suspects differently. She is my one final connection to my former blameless life. My faithful friend receives my stories, them passes them on to my literary agent, who publishes them, pays her, and she wires the proceeds to me (minus an agreed fifteen percent for her trouble). She asks no questions. She even writes a little herself. I trust her discretion completely.
These last few pages will not reach her. They will travel no further than the kitchen grate. But sometimes I feel the need to set down the truth amidst the many lies and half-lies that have spouted from my pen.