TDTLBU Chapter Fifty-Two

Emma grit her teeth as the ambulance rattled slowly over the muddy ruts in the field. She had to brace herself against the wall to keep from falling. Every jerky movement drew groans from the wounded men. The ride from the field hospital to the temporary airfield was less than a half hour but it seemed an eternity. She breathed a sigh of relief when at last it pulled to a stop and the doors were opened, releasing fresh air into the dark, stuffy interior. The wind was strong and brisk that morning and she squinted, shielding her eyes as she leaned out the back of the truck. The C-54 Skymaster… an enormous cargo plane… stood at the ready, poised at the far end of the airfield as medics carefully loaded wounded men on stretchers inside. 

“We’re full,” a sergeant shouted above the wind and the deafening noise of the plane’s engines as he stood in the doorway. “This batch will have to wait for the next flight!” 

Dr. Johnson saluted from where he stood on the ground as the doors of the plane were slammed shut. He turned to the medical personnel standing scattered around the remaining ambulances. 

“The next flight will be arriving in half an hour,” he called out. “Keep your patients stabilized!”

Emma turned back into the ambulance, checking on the four men under her care. These were the more critically wounded and they would soon be en route to England for longer recovery at  permanent, better-equipped hospitals. One of them had lost both of his legs at the knees, another had been filled with shrapnel from a grenade that landed nearly at his feet. The other two had been nearly torn apart with machine gun fire. The machine guns were the worst. Emma had never even known such a thing existed before she joined the army. They were devil’s weapons that spat hellfire, accounting for the majority of casualties.

“Hey… Emma…” 

She smiled as Josh called her name, kneeling at his side on the rough floorboards of the vehicle.

“Well, Scout, it's back to England again. Kinda where it all started, eh? Where you danced with those girls that weren't as pretty as me, right?"

He reached out to grip her hand, grinning weakly up at her.

“They weren't supposed to tell you I said that. No one ever takes me seriously, do they?" He laughed and then sighed. "Wish you were going with me.”

“I wish I was too,” she answered softly. “But someone’s gotta hold down the fort, right?”

“Gonna miss you like crazy.” His smile wavered and fell. She bit her lip, turning her face away by instinct. Never let the soldiers see your tears. That had been drilled into her a hundred times from the very first day of training.

“Hey.” she kept her voice cheerful, although there was an audible catch in it. “You did okay without me for two and a half years already. You’ll pull through.”

He tightened his grip on her hand and she turned back, almost startled to see tears in his eyes. 

“I’m not leaving without a kiss.”

“Not like you have a choice,” Emma laughed. “You're leaving whether you want to or not. But I wouldn’t let you go without a kiss anyway.”  

She bent over him and kissed him, angry at herself for losing control of her tears. They were spilling over, sliding down her cheeks. Josh reached up to wipe them away.

"Hey, don't you start crying again," he spoke in mock disapproval. "You promised you wouldn't."

"That was over two years ago, silly."

"A promise is a promise."

"True." Glancing over her shoulder at the men moving around on the airfield, she quickly slipped the little blue dog, carefully washed and mended, out of her pocket and pressed it into Josh's hand.

“Remember, Scout? How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

“I remember.” He grinned again, closing his fingers around the tiny dog. "You never told me what book that was from.”

“Nurse,” a sergeant poked his head into the back of the truck. “We’re ready to load. Are the patients stabilized and prepared for transport?”

“Yes, they’re ready to go,” Emma stood, moving to double check her patients’ bandages for the final time. As the medics climbed into the truck to move the stretchers, she bent quickly over Josh.

“It’s from Winnie the Pooh,” she whispered, covering her mouth to hide her giggles at his bewildered look as they lifted his stretcher to carry him from the ambulance.

✯✯✯

Maybe the rain was a blessing. No one really fought in the rain. At least raindrops were better than bullets. But to the sopping and miserable men slogging through the mud of yet another ruined village, it felt like a curse. 

That had to be the worst thing about fighting in France… all those little villages and farms everywhere… nothing like the desert where the only thing there was sand and more sand. This village had looked like all the others when they approached it… just a tiny little country village, pretty and charming, and… swarming with Germans. How long ago had that been? Hours? Days? And now, it looked like all the others as they were leaving it. Battered, broken, walls smashed in by explosions, debris full of household goods spilling out into the nearly impassable streets. 

Ruined lives all around them. France was full of ruined lives. Europe was full of ruined lives. Heck, the whole world was full of ruined lives. Ronnie kicked savagely at a battered cupboard lying upended in his path and cursed the day that had brought him here. One by one he had seen his friends and comrades die and still he was here alive, marching through the rain and the mud, and seeing ruined lives everywhere he looked. Maybe it would be better not to see. With a sigh, he yanked off his rain-streaked glasses and wiped his muddy face with his muddy sleeve. There was no escaping the rain and the mud. 

"Where we headed now, Chief?" Andy's voice was tired. He wasn't even bothering to hold his head up anymore. The helmet was heavy, and so were the water-logged boots. Ronnie shoved his glasses back on and glanced over his shoulder at the weary string of men behind him. There were a lot of them… not as many as there had been the night before, of course, but still there were a lot of them. For some reason they had seen fit to make a lieutenant out of him and now there were so many more men to worry about. So many more deaths to feel guilty about.

"Radio's not working too well in this rain," he muttered. "But I…" he hesitated. No reason to let the men know he wasn't too sure about where they were supposed to be. When he spoke again, he lifted his head and filled his voice with as much confidence as it could hold. "We're meeting Colonel Steele's troops 'bout five miles north. We should have some time to rest before we move on. So cheer up, guys, just five miles to go."

"Yeah. Five miles in this downpour and then what? Lie down and sleep in the mud, maybe even eat some of this mud mixed in with the soggy rations, eh?" 

Ronnie ignored the grumbled complaints. They were constant. And there was nothing he could do to make anything better. Right now, he just needed to focus on getting his men out of this village. He paused to shove an enormous oak dresser out of the street… how it had gotten there was beyond him. It was heavy and he was tired. It didn't matter. Half a dozen men stepped in around him and together they lifted the dresser and tossed it to the side.

"There's still people out here," Dan spoke dully. "Maybe we should…"

"No. No stopping. We gotta get to where we're going. It's every man for himself out here."

Ronnie turned to glare at the angry speaker, a sergeant from another unit. He barely knew the man, but he had been with him long enough to know he was trouble.

"Does that go for women and children too?" 

"They ain't my women and children," the sergeant shrugged. "Let's get outta here, lieutenant."

As if in answer, a little cry sounded from the doorway of a battered house across the street. Ronnie narrowed his eyes as he glanced from the sergeant to the house and back again.

"We'll get out when I say so." And with that, he clambered over the piles of debris in the gutter, making his way toward the sound of crying. Several men followed him, kicking broken beams and chunks of plaster aside to clear the way. 

Ronnie's stomach turned when he saw the inside of the house. The room was gutted, crumbling walls collapsing onto a battered floor. Plates still half-filled with a meager supper were nearly buried beneath plaster dust and broken glass on a sagging table. In the corner of the room, the body of a young woman lay curled on the floor. And behind her, three tiny faces with wide dark eyes and skin pale as chalk. She had died shielding them with her body. Ronnie pushed his way inside and rushed to the corner as the others spilled into the room, silent at the scene. 

"There's three of 'em alive," he tried to speak calmly as he lifted the body of the mother and laid her out gently on the floor. "Wonder why they didn't evacuate."

"A lot didn't," Ken spoke behind him. "Too afraid to leave, I guess, or maybe they didn't know where to go. Not like the Krauts care to warn them anyway, maybe they didn't even know the fighting would happen."

"Maman?" The oldest of the children, a little girl no more than four and small for her age, looked up at Ronnie questioningly. Another little girl, maybe one, lay curled at her side, a chubby finger in her mouth. The third was a little boy, two or three. Ronnie reached for the youngest first and handed her to Dan.

"So tiny," Dan whispered, tears pooling in his eyes as he held the baby close. Ronnie passed the little boy to Ken and gathered up the last little girl.

"This house isn't stable," he glanced warily at the sagging rafters. "We gotta get 'em out."

The floorboards creaked ominously as the soldiers filed out of the building, but it didn't fall. Outside, the rain was pouring down harder than ever. Ronnie unbuttoned his jacket and pressed the little girl close against him, wrapping her up as best he could. She was still calling softly for her momma and his heart ached. He didn't want to even try explaining to her. She was too little to think of death.

"Well, wouldya look at that?" The sergeant snapped. "Three little brats to take care of. As if we didn't already have enough trouble on our hands. Better dump 'em and leave. Someone'll find 'em."

"Shut up," Ronnie ordered and his eyes blazed angrily. "I'm the one in charge here and what I say goes, okay? And I say we get these kids out o' here, dammit!" 

The little girl whimpered and he held her tighter, tears spilling down his face. They were invisible in the pouring rain and he was glad. He couldn't let his men see that he was crumbling inside. 

"You're okay," he whispered to the girl. "I'll take care of you, okay? You're safe now."

He didn't know if she could even understand English or not, but maybe she would sense his meaning. Casting a quick glance at the street around them, he was relieved to see they were nearly through the town. Open fields and stretches of woods lay ahead. Calling out a sharp order, he moved forward, the long line of men traipsing slowly along behind.