second in command - a BBC ghosts story.

Always at your service, The Captain.

After the war had ended (and the captain had received his medals, badges, and coins that he didn't truly feel he deserved), the blustery month of October 1945 had arrived, and military personnel were moving out of their base at Button House. He was the captain, so he would be the last to leave. He said goodbye as some of the officers left for the last time, on to their next mission and beyond. There was one part of his office that he knew still needed emptying... his desk. He couldn't simply leave it in the drawer forever, although he wished he could. 

The bottom drawer was unmovable in his mind. He didn't want to see the letter, smell the letter, and certainly didn't want to touch it. He moved closer to the desk and sat down with a thunk in his chair, reaching his hand out to the handle and pulling it towards him. The drawer opened, but he didn't see the letter, just books about the military. For a moment he thought he must have misplaced it during a drunken moment or maybe it was stolen, nicked, pinched. No, it couldn't have. The captain lifted the books from the drawer frantically, there it was at the bottom of the drawer; the letter. His letter. The captain's heart slowed to a more sensible rhythm as he picked it up and held it up close to his chest.

The captain always knew the house had a garden, though they didn't use it much as most of the training was done at the front of the house, it was not a place that had been used in decades; thus it became overgrown and the ivy had become unruly. He knew it was where he should burry the letter. It had become evening and the light of the sun outside had almost completely dimmed, the end of the day was approaching. He had told the other officers that he would deal with the last of the explosives and their disposal, a prototype limpet mine that no one other than himself and Havers knew about would pay homage to the two if anyone were to ever discover the box that housed the letter. No one would ever read that letter.

That night the captain laid down in his bed, as he had always done, his baton resting under his arm, the only difference this time was that he had a small cyanide capsule gripped between his trembling teeth and a tear rolling down his cheek. Soldiers were known to take a small pill like his to war, when the pain was too much they would swallow, and they wouldn't have to be in pain anymore. It was the most dignified way he could go. He'd written a note signed "always at your service, The Captain." It was generic and quite frankly untrue. He didn't write of Havers nor his love for him. He was going down with this secret, for himself, and Havers.

"I'll be with you soon Havers." The captain whispered as he took his last breath.

But he never did reach him. He simply awoke three minutes or so later, exactly where he was. He was still in Button House, but he could see his own body resting in its space, that body did not awaken. Behind him stood the rest of the ghosts (although Jullian had not joined the crew quite yet), he shrieked as they commenced their usual greeting.

He never read the letter, he never saw Havers, and he probably would never leave Button House again. He was thinking of Havers when he died and he would think of Havers forever.

He had fear as time passed that Havers was never missing, maybe it was just a letter that he tried to send in secret, like a love note or just to talk about his time in North Africa. The captain was aware that Havers knew better than to use a yellow envelope. Somehow the captain was right, Havers wasn't missing, he was dead, somewhere in North Africa, thinking of the Captain.