The Long Green Shore by John Hepworth

bank, a thousand miles away, is life—there is the earth, our Mother, that we can embrace her—the sweet mud; the sheltering furrow; the strong protecting arm of trunks and trees.
    Here we are naked in the empty plain of the river. This is no home—the earth we know, but here we are alien, rejected and exposed to the black rain. Our limbs are held in a leaden dream—we hurl ourselves for the other bank but we go with the horrible slow motion of a dream—and all the time the bright deadly rain is pattering around us in the river.
    And yet we are not afraid.
    This has been too sudden, too monstrously improbable, for fear to develop. All the chemistry of fear is working for our salvation—the adrenalin of fear shoots in our blood, firing a tremendous strength to fling us to the shore.
    Before you feel true fear you must realise, you must be aware. The protecting dream-film disappears and you are seared with the burning brand that sends you screaming and helpless, fleeing—or with the corruption of fear that numbs you and leaves you helpless, trembling, transfixed.
    Suddenly this obscenity flops on Regan’s brain and he starts plunging through the water with a horrible bucking motion—like a terrified horse trying to drag itself from a bog.
    It’s funny in a way. It’s almost funny.
    Fluffy is laughing at him—a shrill, unnatural sound in all this roaring soundless tumult.
    Harry Drew is yelling from the bank: ‘Come on! Come on! Come on!’
    The innocent, pattering rain runs across the water and patters over Fluffy’s body. He is still laughing—he drops his rifle—it splashes into the river—he is holding his stomach with both hands—laughing or screaming—he staggers on—laughing or screaming. He falls as he tries to run up the muddy bank—his hands still under him, holding his stomach—he twists his head sideways out of the mud—the mud is in his mouth, but he is still laughing—or screaming…it goes on and on. The sound goes on and on for a thousand years and we are caught in the grey nightmare of the river—we are shod with lead and clothed with iron…
    Regan has fallen near the bank and Harry Drew is dragging him up from the river. Regan is crying—sobbing. Harry throws him into shelter against the trunk of a tree and turns for Fluffy. But Griffo reaches him first.
    He is lying as he fell—his legs dredging in the water, his arms under him, his head turned sideways—laughing out of the mud that mires his mouth. The bank is running red under him—the blood runs down and is licked away in the foam of the current.
    Young Griffo is tearing open the first-aid pack as he hurls himself through the water. He seems to move faster than any of us—he is doing a job for someone else.
    He turns Fluffy over.
    The kid’s still sort of laughing and hanging on to his stomach—his fingers are spread wide and stiff but it’s coming through them—his hands are muddy and bloody—his eyes are open. His face is still sort of laughing but his eyes are open and wide—and they know.
    Griffo tears Fluffy’s shirt down and the wounds lie open.
    â€˜Oh, Christ, Christ, Christ,’ Griffo is saying over and over. He scrapes the mud away from Fluffy’s mouth.
    â€˜You can’t do anything for him,’ snarls Harry Drew.
    Fluffy’s laughing turns to moaning and soon he will be screaming.
    â€˜Knock him out!’ snarls Harry Drew. ‘Hook him! Hit him! He’s finished—put him out! He’ll die before he comes to—don’t let him suffer.’
    Griffo looks up. He is white.
    â€˜I can’t,’ he says, ‘I can’t hit him.’
    Harry scrambles over, snarling at him, but he groans when he looks at Fluffy.
    â€˜Poor bastard—’ he says. ‘Poor kid.’
    He smashes his fist against Fluffy’s jaw. The jaw snaps shut.