1
‘What dreams may come’
Hamlet,Act 3, Scene 1
Recently, I dreamed I was back on the Royal Fleet AuxiliarySir Galahad. Again. I used to dream like this often in my twenties and thirties. Then the dreams went away. I’m not sure why, but getting married and having children probably helped, and leaving the Army. That night they came back. I’m not sure why. They still come.
The dreams are always disturbing, but strangely, since they arise from the same event, often different. Themed dreams. I’m not sure diversity in dreams is a good idea—better just one bad dream that repeats itself over and over. At least I could get used to it, possibly even bored, which would be wonderful.
They run through the senses in random order. The smell-taste combi one is the worst—the smell of burning human flesh. Not an unattractive smell at all. A bit like barbecuing pork but stronger, richer, more promising. My mouth waters in the dream. Army ‘compo’ rations cooked on a small hexamine burner on which we subsisted down South are sustaining but flavourless. Burning flesh smells good—until you realise what it really is, and the appetising smoky top-notes are the result of damp combat jackets.
My mouth didn’t water on the day—it was dry, desert dry with a peculiar metallic taste, a result of the flames and, if I’m honest, the fear. But it waters in my dreams and on waking my mouth is full of saliva.
For many years now, I have written by way of home-grown therapy about a fictional character, Colonel Jacot of the Celtic Guards (bien cuitin the Falklands in a missile strike on the Royal Fleet AuxiliaryOliver Cromwell). He wears black gloves all the timeto hide and soothe his burned hands, and has rough, Gothic, smell dreams—the smoke from his own burning flesh (a twist which I was spared) rising into his nostrils like a burst of overpowering incense. They send him over the edge, his extensive self-medication with Veuve Clicquot (wh
