Caught in Fire - Chapter 1 - Paragraph 1

Chapter 1

Caught in fire

Hate is a very strong word. But hate was exactly what Private John Hutch felt for his comrade Private Tommy Wilkins that night. For the third time in a row Tommy had failed to turn up for night watch, and for the third time in a row John had to cover for him. Now this would have been perfectly alright if John actually liked Tommy, but this could have been no further from the truth. John despised Tommy and had done ever since the two had got into a scrap outside mess on the first day of their tour, ever since then they had avoided each other whenever possible. But for the past week they had been put together in the same unit, and things hadn’t gone well. On the first day Tommy had walked out halfway through a drill complaining of sickness and ever since then had not turned up for duty. Most people wouldn’t have minded if a fellow colleague missed a couple of days due sickness but John knew what Tommy was like, he was lazy and arrogant and would do anything to get out of a hard day’s work. “The basterd aint pulling another one on me again, I’m gonna see what that twats up to” John muttered under his breath as he hoisted his M16 onto the rack as he signed out of duty. “This is the last time I do fucking night duty!” After changing into his civvies he headed towards Block D passing the small garden in front of the mess hall where he and Tommy fought all those months ago. Arriving at Tommy’s room he knocked twice hard on the dirty wooden door. There was no response apart from loud shouts coming from down the corridor telling him “to get back to fuckin bed!” He knocked one more time much to the joy of the men in the rooms down the corridor, but still there was no responses from Tommy’s room not even a shout of “bugger off I’m ill”. John grasped the handle and pulled away suddenly. It was freezing cold, what was the dick was doing in there without the air conditioning on. Enough was enough John thought, and with one quick kick he took down the aging door, and jumped inside. And as he laid his eyes on the interior of the room his eyes were drawn to a dark puddle spilled on the carpet. However this puddle was not of sick like John suspected but blood and it was coming from Tommy’s head.