The Man Beneath

Category C: Highly Commended (2026) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Alison Knight

Keep your head down, Alfie.

    Heavy drumroll of artillery fire as they go over the top. Run! Legs as wonky as a newborn colt’s. Blood pounding through his head. Run! High-pitched whine of a howitzer. Concussive roar as it slams into the cratered landscape. Rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire. The astonishing sledgehammer crack of bullet on bone.

    Should have kept your head down, Alfie.

    Shredded memories of the field hospital. Stacked shoulder to shoulder in a quagmire of mud and shit. A symphony of visceral groans and barked commands. Rhythmic rasp of a saw. Soft squelch as someone’s limb tears loose. Finally patched up in the makeshift operating theatre. Stretchered onto a heaving boat back to Blighty for further surgery.

    Next thing he knows, Alfie is floating in a sea of morphine when an angel drifts into sight.

    ‘I’ve come to change your dressings,’ she says.

    With his unbandaged eye, he observes the smile freeze on the angel’s pretty face as she unmasks him. He doesn’t know it then, but he’s left his other eye, a slice of nose and much of his cheek at the Somme.

Alfie counts himself fortunate to spend his recuperation at the Queen’s Hospital. It’s set in the secluded grounds of a Jacobean manor house in Sidcup, near London. He and the other ‘smashed mugs’, as they call themselves, are free to enjoy the landscaped gardens—all in broad daylight, with no chance of causing distress to members of the public. There’s nothing better than to roam the hills and hollows and rocky ridges, or sip tea under the canopy of a sturdy oak. Sometimes, Alfie visits the estate farm to collect fresh speckled eggs or pat the warm flesh of inquisitive calves who nuzzle him without fear.

    The hospital has no mirrors. But Alfie only needs to look at the ruins of other patients’ faces to gauge the damage wreaked on his own appearance. There’s Barkworth, for instance. He tries to smile when he sees Alfie, only he doesn’t have a mouth. Even Barkworth’s own mother wouldn’t recognise him.

    Alfie is a tailor by profession, employed at a gentlemen’s outfitters in distant Melbourne. He gets on well with the clientele; he has the patter, he likes to think. His fiancée, Jenny, reckons he could sell a bow tie to a bullock. Alfie is very particular about the quality of materials he uses: a good suit should feel like a second skin. He knows how to make a chap feel better about himself, say, by cutting the cloth to disguise a bit of extra flesh around the midriff, or by padding out the shoulders to give a weedy bloke some brawn. His boss has always said he’ll go far; he has a real eye for tailoring.

    But Mr Marx wouldn’t say that these days. Alfie knows there’s no chance he’ll get his old job back; he’d frighten off the customers. It’s a shame, though. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been quite so eager for an overseas adventure, to do his bit for the Mother Country. Though there’s no use crying over spilt milk now.

    Alfie has not heard from Jenny in many weeks. He will write to her to call off their engagement. It is the decent thing to do. He hopes she finds some nice man, a whole man with prospects, who will make her happy.

Once his physical wounds have healed, Alfie has to leave the haven of Queen’s Hospital to make way for the stream of shattered men who require its services. He finds digs in Sidcup. His landlady is kind. She lost her only son at Passchendaele. She encourages Alfie to get out of the house. But how can he face the world when he cannot even bear to look at himself? Some smashed mugs don’t survive the transition to civilian life. Literally. Like poor Barkworth, who has topped himself within a week of discharge.

    Keep your head down, Alfie.

    Alfie can’t help noticing that civvies treat veterans who have lost an arm or a leg with sympathy, with respect. Perhaps it’s because a man’s spirit shines through his face and they can still see the real person there. But when people catch sight of Alfie’s missing face, they stiffen. Stare. Avert their eyes. Abruptly veer across the street. No one wants a visible reminder of just what a bullet can do to a man.

    It’s as if he’s ceased to be human.

    However, Alfie is considerate of others’ feelings. He sits on the specially painted blue benches in Sidcup. Locals know any veteran occupying these benches will have distressing injuries. Passers-by can improvise a detour accordingly while Alfie hunches his shoulders and studies his feet.

    Is it any wonder blokes like him withdraw into themselves, only venturing out under the shadow of a broad-brimmed hat or muffled up to the eyes in a long scarf? Others come out at night under cover of darkness. Like ghouls.

There’s only one way Alfie will get the chance to show the spirit within him. That’s why he presents himself at the Third London General Hospital in Wandsworth, otherwise known as the Tin Nose Shop. He’s heard they make smashed mugs look better.

    Alfie sits in the waiting room, jiggling his foot. He’d grown accustomed to revealing the full horror of his damaged face to the medical staff at Queen’s Hospital. But Alfie worries about starting all over again at the Tin Nose Shop. There’s that terrible moment of vulnerability, when you reveal your disfigurement to strangers and brace yourself for the sharp intake of breath or the rictus of a fake smile.

    A door swings open. A woman strides out.

    ‘Alfie Jones? I’m Kathleen Stott. Please come in.’

    Paint pots and brushes sit on a shelf. Modelling clay and thin sheets of metal lie on a bench. Someone has tacked cheerful posters to the walls, alongside a display of plaster casts of broken faces. It’s more like an artist’s studio than a consulting room. There is even the unexpected domesticity of a kettle on a hob.

    Kathleen invites Alfie to sit down. Her manner is brisk, almost impersonal. It’s not that she’s unkind; she just has a job to do. The first step in facial reconstruction, she explains, is to take a cast. Alfie wonders if his own smashed mug will soon become another exhibit on the wall.

    Kathleen begins to probe the devastated landscape of Alfie’s face. She traces the valley where once his eye had roamed. Skirts the ruined promontory of his nose. Plumbs the jagged cliff where his cheek has broken off. Applies the plaster. As Kathleen leans over him, Alfie catches the faintest whiff of lavender fragrance. It reminds him of Jenny.

    And so the cast begins to take shape—cold; damp; viscous. The sheer suffocating weight of it. Suddenly his heart is pounding fit to tear out of his chest. He’s choking. Sinking into the fetid mud of the trenches as bullets whistle past.

    ‘Don’t move,’ warns Kathleen. ‘Nearly there.’

    Keep your head, Alfie.

    Alfie’s fingers rake the coarse weave of his trousers. His demob suit is not exactly bespoke. But then again, neither is Alfie.

    Once the plaster cast has dried, Kathleen peels it off and inspects it, like you might a piece of fine china.

    ‘Excellent!’ she says.

    Alfie feels absurdly proud.

    The next step is to apply plasticine over the cast to reconstruct Alfie’s face. This will form the basis of the prosthetic. Alfie hands over an old photo his mother has sent as a guide. Him, whole and confident, his arm around Jenny’s slender waist. Kathleen lingers over the photo, then smiles and pats Alfie’s shoulder.

    ‘I’m a sculptor, and an artist. I’ll do a good job.’

    He feels the imprint of Kathleen’s hand long after he has left the room.

    Just like tailoring, Alfie discovers, creating a facial prosthetic requires time, attention to detail and the best materials, with a view to enhancing a bloke’s appearance. The mask itself will be fashioned from very fine galvanised copper and anchored to his head by a pair of spectacles.

    At the next sitting, Kathleen wants to paint the prosthetic mask while Alfie is wearing it to ensure it matches his natural skin tone. They stand face to face, and Kathleen leans in, frowning in concentration as she applies the enamel paint. The whole time, Alfie is intensely aware of the delicacy of Kathleen’s brushstrokes; of the soft swell of her breast; of the way her shining auburn hair has begun to escape its pins.

    At the final fitting, Kathleen hooks the mask behind Alfie’s ears and makes a few adjustments. Then she offers him a hand mirror.

    Alfie hesitates.

    ‘Go on.’

    Eventually, he takes the mirror. Kathleen smiles, then retreats to the sink and steeps her brushes in turpentine. She spends a long time cleaning them. Alfie’s hand shakes a little. It is the first time he will have had a good look at himself since he lost his face.

    Keep your head up, Alfie.

    He draws a deep breath.

    Kathleen has lived up to her promise.

    The tint of the enamel paint blends seamlessly with his own skin colour. His prosthetic eye is as green as the original and shines with the confidence of his natural eye. He marvels how fine strips of tin have been tinted and curled to look like genuine lashes. Kathleen has painted his eyebrow in such fine detail you would think the hair was real. Not only has she provided Alfie with a replacement face, but she’s also managed to capture the essence of his personality. He’s no Douglas Fairbanks, that’s for sure. But the mirror hasn’t cracked in fright. He hopes that might save him from seven years’ bad luck.

    Kathleen looks round from the sink. ‘Happy?’

    Alfie nods. He feels a tear trickle down his good cheek.

Alfie’s mask, however, is not perfect. Unlike one of his bespoke suits, it does not quite fit like a second skin and chafes a little where it meets undamaged flesh. He supposes he will get used to it. And while his new face can withstand a casual glance, people still give him a quizzical look when they catch sight of him up close. At least no one swerves across the road to avoid him these days.

    Every night, though, he takes off the prosthetic and exposes his injuries in all their grotesqueness. He lies in his narrow single bed, aching with loneliness, and stares at the ceiling with his one good eye. He’s still the same person as ever he was. He’s still Alfie. His heart beats just the same.

    He wonders if someone, someday, might find it within themselves to look beyond the ghastly patchwork of puckered skin and love the man beneath.