"Starting the bombing run now." "Basement 12." "All yours, bombardier." "Left, right." "Steady." "Left, steady, steady." "Steady!" "Get us out of here, Juggler." "Don't worry, you'll be home for breakfast." "Bacon and eggs." "Stay alert." "Eyes peeled, everyone." "Juggler!" "Juggler!" "Get on this!" "It's his back." "As I can feel the atmosphere, here is the end of the world, where the living dance with the dead." "Welcome to Lanfordack." "I'm Sister Grant." "Flight Lieutenant Toby Jugg." "Of course." "Mrs. Jugg?" "Not in the Biblical sense." "Sorry?" "She's my aunt." "Sister Grant knows perfectly well who I am." "I think that's a hint, Mrs. Jugg." "We do have electric light." "Lanfordack has its own generator." "But it's switched off at 7:00 each evening to save fuel." "All the torches were commandeered during the Blitz, so most of us now rely on candles and paraffin lamp and things like that." "People find they get used to the dark pretty fast." "Initially, accidents and things like that are to be expected." "That is why your mattress is protected." "So, no harm done, eh?" "Nothing to worry about." "Not at all." "It's quiet here, isn't it?" "It's almost as if there's no war going on." "One of the benefits of being four miles away from the nearest telephone." "Well, I suppose you can't have a bunch of madmen crossing lines with the normal people." "At Lanfordack, we don't use terms like "mad" and "normal."" "Everyone is psychotic to some degree." "That is human nature." "So says Dr. Burns." "Yes." "My new C.O." "He's been particularly keen to meet you, the famous Toby Jugg," "Distinguished Flying Cross and things like that." ""The Bomber Baron"?" "Isn't that was the newspapers called you?" "What the papers say in those rags...." "It's not like that." "It's not like that at all." "I'm sure Dr. Burns will understand." "You know Mrs. Jugg, don't you?" "Yes, she came down here three times." "And on each occasion," "Julia talked almost exclusively about you." "She's very fond of you." "Very impressive woman, your aunt." "Aunt only by marriage." "She's the widow of my Uncle Paul." "Yet for most of your life, she's been your only living relative." "I might suggest, a mother figure." "I wouldn't say that." "As you wish." "How did that get here?" ""l chiefly use my charm against creatures that do people harm... the newts, the toad, the vole, the spider." "And people call me 'The Pied Piper."'" ""My dearest Julia, I'm settling in." "I have the room to myself in the old library." "The books are all gone, but the empty shelves all seem to say the right thing to me," "'Fresh start.'" "And I'm full of hope that soon I will come home to you, and we will have a future together, not as aunt and nephew, but as a woman and a man."" "Mustn't forget between the toes." "How are you getting along with Sister Grant?" "All the chaps feel a bit left out now that she's so full-time with you." "They're jealous." "Me and Sister Grant?" "All the chaps like her." "Trust me, I won't get in their way." "That's why she feels safe with you." "You being...." "Well, you know." "I flew my first stop in April, '42." "Completed my first tour in early '43." "Then I switched to low-level strategic bombing." "Dangerous work." "That was how I bought it." "Go on." "I felt a sharp blow," "like somebody'd struck me hard with a cricket bat." "Let's go back again." "You were very young when you joined up." "Why?" "I just wanted to know what I was capable of." "Life as a scientific experiment?" "Just a bag of salts and a few buckets of water." "And even when I was shot, and I genuinely expected I was going to die," "I had no mystical rush to the head." "And I was pleased at that." "Believers say atheism doesn't survive the deathbed." "Well, I was happy to disappoint them." "And now?" "Well, it's difficult to describe." "Cleared for takeoff." "Chocks away." "And he harks off." ""My dearest, I'm becoming a connoisseur of silence." "I'm savoring yours." "What does its complex flavor add up to?" "Even allowing for the erratic wartime post, my proposal ought to have received a reply by now." "But no." "Still waiting." "I hope there's nothing wrong."" "Thank you." "Steven...." "Juggler Jugg, the former Baron." "You smashed up German cities." "like a child knocking over sand castles." "Sorry, Juggler." "Not your turn today." "Peter Enfield, since you asked." "How long have you been here for?" "Three months." "I was at Beacon Hill when the whole place was blown to smithereens." "After which, every loud bang would shatter me completely." "A child popping a paper bag would reduce me to a sobbing wreck." "I'm much better now." "I still hide under a table when a door slams." "Transmit, "Mission accomplished."" "Package delivered." "We've laid our eggs." "We've left our visiting card." "We've sown our cabbages." "All circuits down." ""My dearest Julia, you know that feeling you get?" "Someone is watching you, and you look up, and they are?" "Well, I feel like that all the time here." "Only, whenever I look up, it's nothing but a shadow." "Of course, it's worse at night because I can't sleep." "Or either I dare not sleep because I'm having these terrible nightmares." "No doubt, I would make a very interesting case." "At least, I'm sure that's what Dr. Burns would think." "Still no letter from you." "I hope all is well."" "Have you had a letter from her?" "You know how irregular the post is these days." "In the meantime, I was in the village last night, and I took the chance to use a telephone." "So you spoke with her." "She's hopes we're both getting along." "If I can teach you to know yourself a little better, then perhaps you'll come to understand rather than fear everything you're experiencing now." "It's what Julia wants." "It's why you're here." "But you have to trust me." "You have to stay here and trust me if you want to get back to Julia." "During the first year of the war, I used to drive an ambulance." "I can still do the making with one hand." "Here." "Medically, this is brain damage, the equivalent of a sharp knock on the top of the head." "The slosh." "Cheers." "You should look into my eyes when we toast." "It's rude not to." "You know how the blind do it?" "No, get your hands off me." "Are you feeling brave, Toby?" "Go on." "You're looking very tired, Toby." "You are tired." "Now breathe in." "Relax and breathe out." "Close you eyes." "Feel your limbs getting heavy, your fingers, your hands falling away, the flesh on your arms, the muscles falling from the bones, your shoulders rolling back, and the tongue rests on the floor of your mouth." "Your eyes roll in." "And the only thing you hear is my voice." "Now sleep." "Can you hear me, Toby?" "Yes." "Now open your eyes." "What is it, Toby?" "What is it in the shadows?" "Wake up, Toby." "Wake up." "Amytal." "Hours of oblivion guaranteed." "Thank you." "I've run out of matches." "Nothing doing, Toby Jugg." "I know you smoke in bed." "But this place will burn like a funeral pyre." "It's just to see with." "Perhaps you could leave your lamp." "A naked flame and things like that in your condition?" "There." "Now you don't need a lamp." ""My dearest Julia," "I've seen the grim things that come and go on the borders of the night." "I don't mind admitting it." "I've never been so frightened." "And my flesh creeps at what they try to do to me, to enter my body, to possess my soul." "Why ever would they want me?" "No, I must be going mad." "I wish I had somebody to talk about this to." "How well do you know Hal Burns?" "He comes on like some kind of family friend, but...." "Well, something isn't right here at Lanfordack." "What will happen to me here?"" "It's a terrible, awful thing to have happened." "Peter told me he was getting stronger every day." "He always tried to maintain a gallant front." "I think that's partly why people admired him so much." "Everyone, even Hal, is devastated." "Was there a note?" "I don't think so, no." "Hal didn't explain much, just that he blames himself." "He admits it?" "He was especially close to Peter." "Now you've gone all tense." "I saw them together." "It was just before." "Chum?" "Sorry, chum." "One of these days, my decapitated head is going to be found bleeding on a pavement." "And when asked how I got that way, it will reply," ""Excuse me, but I seem to have forgotten my body."" "Mind like a sieve." "A postman collared me while I was down in the village this afternoon." "He gave me a letter for you." "Infernal blackout!" "Could I borrow your light?" "I've lost mine." ""How is the Juggler?" "No doubt Dr. Burns fills your days." "Or you've been taken in hand by that pretty nurse." "You never were much good at letter writing, but it would be so lovely to hear from you." "I haven't had a whisper since we parted."" "Come out, you coward." "My dear Toby." "I must apologize." "I saw the symptoms you displayed when you first arrived here." "And that's when I decided to have your letters intercepted." "She writes that she's very well." "I'll send her yours tomorrow with a note apologizing and explaining everything." "Saying sorry, you couldn't resist because you're a Peeping Tom?" "Saying sorry, but I needed to know what's going on inside your head." "Because you aren't talking to me." "You were talking to her." "So you know everything." "Yes." "Julia...." "Welcome back." "I hope I'm not intruding." "Not at all." "You forget, I've read your letters." "I'll see about tea." "Hal, I accept you acted with the best intentions, but you must admit you made it hard for us to trust you anymore." "And if Toby can't trust you, what use is there in him staying here?" "Toby's free to leave any time, of his own free will and with my blessing." "But you didn't, did you, Toby?" "I feel safe with you here." "Well, it's unorthodox." "But if Toby believes he needs you, then you're welcome to stay as long as you like." "I shall write immediately and have some of my things sent down." "I'll, ...go and fetch some paper." "It'll be a pleasure having you here." "Where have they gone?" "Fore." "Toby, darling." "Are you okay?" "Why don't you talk to Hal about it?" "Don't be elaborate." "Don't be vague." "Be simple, which is very hard." "It was an evil night." "It was dark, and it was icily cold." "And I remember taking off and feeling like I was just disappearing." "I was just being swallowed by the black." "The target was Cologne." "It was one of the big bombing raids against factories and the goods yards." "But it was also at a time that we'd catch the housewives in their beds." "The flak was intense." "It always was over Cologne." "But it didn't bother me." "Sometimes before," "I'd have a premonition that we were going to get it." "And usually, when I dropped the bombs I felt relief." "But this time was different." "I felt the shock waves when the bombs hit us, and I just felt elation." "I felt intense joy at the death and destruction that I was delivering." "And...." "I don't know how long that lasted for." "All my other feelings were so intensified that my sense of time entirely disappeared." "It could have been less than a second, but afterwards, I just felt empty and painfully ashamed." "The nothingness of what I'd done." "But you were fighting on the right side, the good side." "Well, even if I was, what I did, what my job was, what I was expert at, what I did night after night after night was...." "I don't even know how to describe it." "Try." "I obliterated." "I destroyed life." "At the start of your story, you said it was an "evil" night." "It's just a turn of phrase." "So you don't reckon that what you did was evil." "I don't know." "It doesn't mean, by the way, that what you did was in any way inhuman." "Quite the opposite." "Evil is as ineffably human as love." "No!" "You won't take me." "I don't even fear you." "These red welts...." "I count one, two, three, four, five of them." "At least." "The dead weight of your body against the hard surface of the bath killed the blood cells in certain contact points." "Sores are already beginning to develop around the dead tissue." "Is that a fact?" "You know what Hal told us?" "Your aunt and me?" "It's precisely as they predicted it would happen." ""By submerging himself in water, Toby was symbolically enacting a return to the security of the amniotic fluid in which we began our career on Earth."" "The bath was empty." "I told him." "I think he was disappointed." "He was trying to show off." "It was charming." "Said the doe of the lion." "I see." "No, you misunderstand me." "But then I think you always will, won't you, Toby?" "This is so bad." "You're corrupting me." "And you used to say I was so sweet and harmless." "Aw." "I'm sure I meant it as a compliment." "It stung, all the same." "I can't feel anything down there." "But I can feel you." "Do you know why I've never been much of a one for going out and about?" "I just think most people do that sort of thing to find their mate." "The crucial thing is just to recognize it when it happens and reach out and grab your chance of happiness." "It's just that in my case I haven't even had to leave home." "And I think that's why..." "No, Toby." "Not now." "Why not?" "It's nothing to be afraid of." "I've never been scared of you, T oby." "Drink up." "Cheers." "Shall I show you something?" "Do you want to know how blind people say, "Cheers"?" "Wake up!" "I get that way, too, chum." "Every time I dream that a bear is eating my toes." "Here you go." "I hope you don't mind being third light." "What is it they say about superstition?" "Product of an empty stomach on an empty brain?" "I flew with a rear gunner once who believed in fate." "He nailed a horseshoe to the lintels of his digs." "It fell on his head and cracked his skull." "Where are you going, Toby?" "Just getting some fresh air." "No." "Don't be a silly boy!" "Flying man who needs his wife." "It's my stuff." "Bastard!" "Bastard!" "Did one of those foolish boys lock you in?" "They can be so very cruel." "You have to help me get out of here." "And what about your aunt?" "You can't just abandon her." "She won't..." "She can't listen to me." "She's been enthralled." "Yes." "It is a terrible power." "Then she can't possibly understand." "These sorts of things are very difficult." "First, I...." "I can't accept it." "Dr. Burns has been..." "His relationship with Mrs. Jugg is inadvisable." "I worry that the motives guiding his concern for you have become clouded." "It was Hal who locked me in here." "Dr. Burns did?" "You have to help me." "I won't let you down." "I promise." "Don't leave me here." "Dr. Burns has a bicycle." "I can ride it down to the village and phone the authorities." "I'll make an official report and things like that." "You'll be out of Lanfordack in no time." "What if Hal comes back before you?" "And what if he brings the shadows with him?" "Shadows?" "Hal Burns has confessed to me...." "He told me his master was the prince of this world." "You mean the devil?" "Who else can control the shadows?" "I'll be back." "I promise." "I'm sorry, Toby." "Stay away from me." "I'd never do anything to hurt you." "You keep your evil eye off me." "Toby?" "Julia, save yourself!" "Stay away from him!" "Toby, it's very distressing that you developed such a distrust and dislike of me." "But I'm sure you'll understand that as long as you remain here," "I will continue to treat your malady in the way I think best." "Sally." "No!" "No!" "Good evening, Toby." "Toby?" "Well, you've burnt your boats now, my boy." "Whatever you say to Julia, she's just going to think," ""Poor Hal." "What a time he must be having."" "I found this in your pocket." "I did wonder about returning it to you." "But the ideal relationship between doctor and patient," "like that between father and son, is based on trust." "Now, I trust you, Toby." "I trust you to do the right thing." "Toby?" "Toby." "Hello, chum." "Pretty, isn't she?" "It's lucky we don't take our mortal injuries up over the river with us." "Otherwise, she wouldn't be quite such a picture." "She wants you to know it's not so bad here." "What was that?" "Peter?" "I thought I heard something." "I'm sure I heard something." "It's a noisy old house." "It's okay." "My darling, it's okay." "It's all all right." "Hey, it's all all right." "It's okay, darling." "It's okay." "Toby?" "Toby!" "Toby!" "Toby, shh!" "Shh!" "Toby, listen to me." "Darling, get off me." "Toby, please, darling." "Stop it." "Stop it, Toby." "Stop it!" "Toby, get off me!" "Get off me!" "Toby, stop it!" "Toby!" "Stop it!" "Toby!" "Stop it, darling!" "Stop it!" "Get off me!" "Darling!"