A Sailor's Honour by Chris Marnewick

look like?’ De Villiers said. ‘Why am I here?’
    â€˜You’re in hospital.’
    â€˜I can see that,’ De Villiers said. ‘1 Mil. But why?’
    â€˜Pierre, I have bad news. You’ve been shot. Annelise and Marcel and Jeandré are dead.’
    De Villiers went into convulsions. Weber had to call the nursing staff.
    It would be three months before De Villiers was fit to leave the hospital. He was on crutches and the army ambulance dropped him in front of his house.
    He went inside. De Villiers sniffed the air and smelled cleaning materials. Soap. Disinfectant. Jeyes Fluid.
    He walked slowly, placing the crutches carefully on the parquet floor. He stood next to their bed. He could smell Annelise in the room. He turned and went to Jeandré’s room. Her teddy bear was on her pillow. He walked to the end of the passage and turned into Marcel’s room. There was an unfinished school project on Marcel’s desk. He turned and fled but fell down in the passage. Excruciating pain shot up from his leg. He turned over on his back and cried. He felt his stomach muscles tightening and raged. He struck the walls with his crutches and raged and raged until he was out of breath. Most of all, he was angry with himself for allowing the killers to get near his car, for not seeing them coming with their guns, for not killing them first.
    When he couldn’t cry anymore, he leopard crawled to the front door, dragging his crutches with him. He grabbed the door handle and pulled himself upright. He made his way to the garage and pressed the remote. The garage door lifted slowly, groaning and squeaking from opposite ends. De Villiers walked to the driver’s door. The keys were in the ignition. There were bullet holes in the dashboard and several windows had been broken. There were glass shards on the seats. De Villiers could smell the blood. The blood was on the seats. On the inside of Annelise’s window, De Villiers saw her bloody handprint on the glass.
    He fainted.
    When he came to, he turned over and stared at the sky. His stomach muscles convulsed in waves of spasms. He lay there for a long time, waiting for the convulsions to stop. He made a decision. I’m going to have to go back into the house, he said to himself. And I’m never coming back.
    He leopard crawled back into the house. He went past the bedrooms to his study. He pulled himself upright. He dialled the numbers of the combination lock and opened the steel cabinet. He stood on one leg and looked at the contents. His army backpack hung on a hook on the side. His passport lay on a shelf near the front. His army dog tags were on top of the passport.
    De Villiers undressed and threw his clothes on the floor. When he was naked, he looked at his wounds: bullet holes in his chest and leg, scars where the titanium rods had been inserted. He dressed slowly, taking the necessary items from the backpack, one by one. Underpants. Cotton socks. Denim shirt. Faded army-issue cargo pants. Canvas belt. Brown army-issue jacket with four pockets, two at the chest and two at the hip. He placed the survival knife back on the shelf in the cabinet and took a small scabbard from the shelf above. He pulled the Leatherman multitool from the scabbard. The stainless steel was clean and shiny. A gift from his brother-in-law. He placed it in the scabbard and strapped it to his sound ankle. It belonged on the other side, under his right hand, to be used at a moment’s notice, but that leg was out of commission. For the time being.
    De Villiers’s identity document had a photograph of Annelise and the children in a sleeve. He put that in the top pocket over his heart. The passport followed. He rummaged in a drawer until he found their joint will. He folded it carefully and put it in the backpack. He leaned down and picked up his discarded trousers. His wallet had bloodstains, but it was his own blood. There was cash and a credit card inside.