The Dead Men Stood Together Read Online Free PDF Page A

and soon after that the angry tone of my mother.
    My uncle’s voice was calm and even throughout and, after a short while, my mother’s voice calmed too, and to my great surprise my uncle emerged with a triumphant smile on his face.
    ‘But know that if he gets hurt,’ shouted my mother from inside, ‘I will take that crossbow and –’
    I never did get to hear what my mother was going to do with the crossbow, because my uncle hustled me away towards the barn, where we fetched the actual weapon and set off towards the orchard.
    ‘Do you really think my father was a good man?’ I asked.
    ‘Aye,’ said my uncle. ‘Why would I say it if it wasn’t true?’
    ‘To keep my mother sweet?’ I ventured.
    He stopped and smiled at me.
    ‘That is possible,’ he said. ‘But in this case it was my true opinion. Besides, do you not know it to be true yourself?’
    I took a deep breath, wary of being too forthcoming with a man I barely knew.
    ‘I can remember little about him,’ I said. ‘He was always leaving to go to sea.’
    ‘But he loved you dearly,’ said my uncle.
    ‘He didn’t show it,’ I returned.
    ‘Some men don’t. Some men can’t.’
    ‘Then maybe some men shouldn’t be fathers,’ I said, my voice cracking, my face reddening. ‘Nor husbands neither.’
    My uncle turned away and looked into the woods.
    ‘If you want to learn to fire a crossbow,’ he said, ‘then I’m your man. If you want someone to wipe your nose and hold your hand, then you must look elsewhere.’
    I was struck by the coldness of his words and they shocked me out of my impending tears.
    ‘I’m no wet nurse, boy,’ he said, as though there had ever been a doubt. ‘It’s not in my nature.’
    After a moment, he handed the crossbow to me.
    ‘Shall we fire some bolts?’
    I nodded and took the weapon from him. I was surprised by its weight. It was made of wood and metal and it had patterns carved into both.
    ‘Hold it so it’s pointing to the ground.’
    I did as he said, and put my foot through a hoop he called the stirrup – and it did look just like the stirrup on a horse’s saddle – and turned a handle until the string was pulled back taut and held in place by a catch, the bow bending and creaking as I did so.
    This was the great thing about the crossbow, explained my uncle – that a mere boy like me could operate it. No strength was required, as with a longbow, although skill was still required in the shooting.
    ‘One day,’ he said, ‘all battles will be between men armed with machines like this.’
    I tried to imagine such a thing as I leaned the crossbow on a fence rail and lifted the stock to my shoulder. I reached under it to grasp the firing mechanism – a long twisted metal lever. My uncle placed a bolt in front of the string.
    ‘Don’t jerk it,’ he said. ‘Choose your target. Squeeze when you’re ready to fire.’
    Just as I focused on the sapling I was to shoot at, a bird landed on a branch and cheeped, distracting me, and I turned the crossbow towards it and then the bird leapt up in a burst of feathers and fell to the ground.
    I had shot it. I hadn’t meant to. I can’t say how or why my finger pulled the lever, but pull it it did. Carrying the crossbow with me, I walked over to where the bird was lying, impaled on the bolt which ran through its neck.
    It was a nightingale. It still twitched pitifully and without a moment’s thought my uncle stood on its throat and finished it off.
    ‘If that was meant, that was quite a shot!’ he said, patting me on the back.
    I pulled away angrily.
    ‘Meant?’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident.’
    My uncle smiled.
    ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘No harm done. ’Tis only a bird, after all.’
    But I stared down at that bird with a heavy heart. I had done a terrible thing and I knew it, even if my uncle did not.
    ‘I feel bad about it. I wish I hadn’t done it.’
    My uncle put his hand on my shoulder.
    ‘Guilt?’ he said.