Shame

I was not proud to have been a soldier. I bore the sins I had committed on my Lord's behalf with what I thought was a brave stoicism.

My daughter, however, saw it differently: to her, my silence was only proof of cowardice. Why else would I refuse to talk of my time in the lacquered wood armour? Why else would I shy from the deep blue of our tabards? Why else would I roar in fury when I found her practicing stances with a stout stick and a pan lid?

For all I tried to protect her from my pain, all she saw was my shame. But while it was for the atrocities I had done, she was certain it was for the things I did not do.

Perhaps I should have talked about it after all, because her defiant young mind filled the silence between us with tales of desertion and dereliction. And I knew nothing of it until the day I woke to find her room empty, her bed bare but for a well worn and oft folded pamphlet.

"Enlist in the Lord's Army today. Travel, learn, fight, protect. Bring honour to your family." Or, it had once said bring. The word was crossed out in thick, furious strokes of a pencil, a correction writ boldly above it. Now it said restore. "Restore honour to your family."

My darling girl, there is no honour in the Lord's Army...

Only shame.