Harry Walsh
Location: Qasr El Nil Barracks (Courtyard)
Arriving at the barracks, things had been relatively okay for Harry. The idle chatter of soldiers, the laughter of jokes in the mess and the sound of drinks being poured. His company helped as well, not just Aziza, but those around, their conversation, at least at first, helped to normalize things, but as Peter told his story, and the Lord-Major spoke as well, he couldn't help but feel sick. He didn't touch the glass offered to him, too focused on distracting himself from what was going on, on detaching himself from the discussion at hand. He went pale as he sat there, paler than usual as he limply felt Aziza's hand grip his own.
It wasn't long before it all began to get to him, the chatter, the uniforms, the weapons and drills. Every sight, every sound, they all grained on Harry's conscience, dragged him back to the same feeling and the same sounds he felt years ago, in the worst years of his life. The sounds of gunfire grained on him most of all, each one made him jolt ever so slightly. As Aziza's hand gripped his, he shook against it with each shot, in his mind he could only hear them closer and closer, louder and louder, it wasn't long before it all became too much, before Harry wasn't with the rest of them. Before he was somewhere else...
It was always quiet when they buried the dead. There weren't usually many bodies to bury, not on the front anyway, most of them were too far out to be recovered, and most of the soldiers weren't brave enough to grab a body and drag it back during a retreat. Although, this was the one time you were safe. There was no real agreement on it, but something of a mutual understanding meant that neither side fired on the other while they tried to bury or count their dead, as long as they did it behind their own lines. It was always tense, still, you never quite knew if the trust was going to hold, or if you'd get a bullet in your back while it was exposed.
Harry had been there for a few months now, and already he'd lost count of the bodies he'd buried, lost count, but never forgotten the faces. He hated doing it, hated every part about it, lugging the bodies about, digging the holes and placing the dead down in them, all with the impending threat of death a little more than a hundred meters behind. But he didn't have a choice, they'd always drawn straws, it was how they worked out who would go up and who'd stay down. He'd been chatting with a friend, James, at the time, looking over an Ottoman pistol he'd scavenged in the fighting, when they got called up, pulling the short straw, he'd left it with James.
Harry had been digging for the past hour or so, there hadn't been any fighting all day, both sides had been licking their wounds after massive bombardments and assaults over the past few days, and while both sides had trenches a little more than one hundred meters from each other, there was hardly ever a shot fired, both sides just wanted rest. But some of the troops grew impatient, with so little to do, it was easy to get bored under the boiling sun, to be desperate for something to happen, and then something did.
BANG. Harry hit the ground in an instant, along with the others with him, as they crawled back into the trench. The confusion ran through both trenches, shouting in Turkish and in English. Eventually, one bit became clear. "James is hit!" The medic ran down to the man, and Harry with him, seeing his friend bleeding profusely from his leg. "It just went off!" He insisted.
Looking down to James' side, Harry could see the pistol he'd given him. While James had been messing with it, showing it off to other soldiers, he had accidentally left the safety off and shot himself in the leg. In the resulting confusion, the Turks fired on them once more, and a firefight began which lasted the next six hours, taking four more British lives while the medic still worked on James. The bullet had cut clean through the artery in his leg and gotten stuck deeper in his thigh. James died from his wounds, at only seventeen, Harry lost his best friend on the battlefield, to a bullet from his own gun.
The memory faded away and Harry realized he'd been gripping Aziza's hand somewhat tightly, he slowly released her, hand shaking somewhat as he looked over at her, having completely missed her question.
"S...Sorry... Excuse me everyone." He spoke quietly, plainly as he pushed himself to stand, quickly walking off in any particular direction to find a quiet spot alone. Reaching into his pockets, he grabbed some rolling paper and tobacco, shakily and terribly trying to roll himself a cigarette, desperately needing to try and calm down.
William Drake
Location: Egyptian Museum
William couldn't help but smirk smugly at Vera's comment, somewhat pleased that Josephine's advances seemed to have gotten on her nerves, it only served to reinforce many of his assumptions, after all.
"I didn't take you for the jealous type, Vera, you could have said something." He jabbed with a wink, glancing back over to Nora with the same smug grin as he didn't seem to particularly care about her being present for such a comment. With his teasing done, he listened for now as the two ladies spoke, waiting for another task to be handed to him.
When it was, he gave Vera a nod, smile stretching into a wide smirk yet again as he chuckled.
"Of course, all you have to do is ask for a little alone time." He jabbed again, now that their company was less prominent, he seemed quite happier to go back to their usual verbal sparring. He didn't particularly care about the opinions any of the others might have had toward it, it was simply exhausting in the company of so many, where as an audience of just one such as Ms. Kingston made it all the more enjoyable.
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