The House on the Lake by Nuala Ellwood

Author:Nuala Ellwood [Ellwood, Nuala]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241985168
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

22

Soldier Number 1

Rowan Isle House, 23 September 2004

‘Open your eyes!’

The shock of his voice made me jump. I turned and tried to salute but my legs wobbled and I almost fell over.

Sarge was still dressed in his best uniform and he’d had a haircut. It was like we’d switched roles: he was now the elite soldier and I was the straggly-haired mess.

‘Turn round,’ he commanded.

At first I was confused. I didn’t know which direction he meant so I turned to face the wall. Then I felt his hands on my shoulders and he spun me round and pushed me towards the other wall, where, I noticed for the first time, a mirror was hanging.

‘What do you see?’

‘I see me, Sarge.’

‘You?’ he said, a weird sneer creeping across his face. ‘And who might you be?’

I told him that I was his daughter, Soldier Number 1.

When I said this he grabbed my shoulders with both hands and pushed me closer to the mirror so that my face was touching the glass.

‘Really?’ he said, with spit spraying from his mouth. ‘That’s what you are? Is that right?’

I nodded my head. I didn’t know what he was talking about. Who else would I be?

‘See, I always thought that’s what you were,’ he said, holding the back of my hair in his fist. ‘And that’s what you’d always be, but yesterday you showed me you were something else. That you weren’t a good soldier any more.’

I told him that I was a good soldier, that I’d always done as he asked, that it was just a swim, an innocent swim, that I was still a good soldier.

When I said this he pulled me back by my hair so I was about half a metre away from the mirror. I could see myself clearly. My face was red from where he’d dragged my hair back and my eyes were swollen from crying.

‘Now listen to me,’ he said, pressing his mouth to my ear. ‘I put this mirror in here so you could have a good look at yourself, ask why you succumbed to temptation, why you let the enemy get inside your head. Does that look like a good soldier, eh?’

He jabbed his finger at the side of my head as he said this.

‘Well, does it?’

I shook my head.

‘No,’ he said, letting go of my hair. ‘No, it doesn’t. Now I want you to sit there and take a long, long look at yourself and see if you can see the mark of the enemy on you.’

He gave me a shove and I slumped to the ground. Then he came up behind me and pulled me to my feet. He said that what he was doing was fair, and that any good soldier needs to take their punishment graciously. I had no idea what he was on about but then I saw he had a line of rope wrapped round his arm. He slowly unloosened it and then, grabbing both my hands, he tied the rope round them tightly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.