TDTLBU Chapter Forty-Nine

 

"Is that you, Emma?" Marci struggled to sit up in the near pitch blackness of the tent, tangled in her blankets.

"Who else would it be?" Emma mumbled, groaning as she dropped to her knees and face planted into her own pile of blankets. She was more tired at that moment than she had ever been in her life... And more afraid too. In spite of a seemingly successful surgery, Josh was still unconscious... And she had no way of knowing if he would be okay. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him. 

"I don't know. Anyone, I guess," Marci giggled slightly… a sort of nervous, hysterical giggle, born of pure exhaustion. Her laugh ended in a sob. "Emma… you won't believe who I found today…"

"Try me," Emma's voice was muffled. "After the day I've had, I'll believe just about anything."

"My… my brother…" Marci's voice broke and she burst into tears. "My brother, Emma. He's here… at the hospital."

Blankets rustled loudly as Emma disentangled herself and went to her friend, wrapping her arms around her. “Is he okay?"

Marci sniffed and giggled again. Emma was suddenly afraid she was getting wildly hysterical.

"Yeah, thank God, he's okay… bullet wound in the arm… but he… he's okay…" She sighed shudderingly and reached for Emma's hand, squeezing it so tightly that she winced. "Oh, Emma… I’ve been… so afraid.”

“Me too,” Emma murmured, hanging her head. “My brother was out there too… I know, because he’s in the First Division and Josh… Oh, Josh…" she paused, blinking back the tears threatening to spill over. "But I haven’t gotten any news yet… about Ronnie, I mean. You’re lucky, Marci… lucky to know that your brother’s alive and safe.”

“Alive maybe,” Marci whispered. “But not safe. He'll be going back soon… into combat."

Emma sighed heavily and fell back in her blankets. She hadn't bothered changing out of her uniform and she slipped her hand in her pocket, curling her fingers around the little blue dog. She had forgotten it until now. She pulled it out and pressed it against her heart, dirty as it was. In the darkness, she let her silent tears fall.

"Marci?"

"Mmm?"

"You were right," Emma whispered, squeezing the little dog tighter. Her voice was quavering. "I… I do love Josh." 

✯✯✯

The days following the invasion were rough and miserable. Feverish, racked with pain, haunted by flashbacks of the Normandy landings, Mac felt as if he would never again know what it was like to live a normal life. They had told him that his leg was gone, but somehow that had never registered in his mind. He could still feel it as if it was there… burning with the worst pain he had ever felt. He never before had believed that such pain was even possible. 

Vague memories flitted through his mind of the days in between the battle and his arrival in England. Lying on the battlefield for hours, wondering if he was dying… Screaming in desperation in the hospital tent when they told him they would have to remove his leg, what was left of it… The nurse who had smiled sadly while she prayed aloud for him...Men holding him down as he struggled wildly while they gave him anesthesia for the amputation… and finally waking up to see only one leg under the blankets but to feel never-ending pain in the leg that was gone.

The hospital was quiet. Too quiet. In spite of the bustle of activity and occasional cries of the wounded, it seemed almost a dead, eerie silence after the explosions and machine gun fire and torpedoes of war. How long had it been since he hadn’t had the constant sounds of shelling in his ears? He couldn’t even remember. Life seemed all strangely blurred together, all his former existence buried beneath the all-consuming clouds of war. 

He had been shipped out of Normandy on a cargo plane early that morning and it had landed on a makeshift runway at the back of the hospital. It was a hospital that specialized in caring for amputees, he was told. He was carried in on a stretcher and assigned a bed in a ward that was so long he could barely see the end of it from where he lay. White-capped nurses in the blue and white pin-striped uniform of the Red Cross moved silently through the ward as they cared for the patients. They were mostly young girls… like the army nurses back in the evacuation hospitals just behind the front lines. Angels of mercy, every one of them, whether they wore neat dresses and white caps or baggy green combat uniforms, whether they walked the corridors of hospital buildings or the trampled grass that made up the floors of enormous canvas tents.  

The first night back was the worst Mac had in a long time. Maybe it was the stress of the crossing. The pain was terrible, but he suffered through it as quietly as he could. He grit his teeth, his jaw clenched as beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. His body shook as he fought to keep control. The scenes from that day when hell had become real swirled through his mind over and over. It was as if he was there again. Stumbling over the wet sand, tripping over the bodies of his dead comrades. He could hear the screams of the dying, rivaling the sound of the shelling. Men reached out to him as he passed, begging for help, their eyes haunted. They were blown to pieces, blood dripping from gaping wounds. He cried out in horror, running faster to escape the nightmare. At times, he was trying desperately to help them and yet there was nothing he could do. And at other times, he was a coward, running to hide. Stopping to help no one. He would run and run until he couldn’t run anymore, collapsing to the beach again and again as that awful moment was relived countless times. 

Suddenly the scenes began to fade before his eyes, slowly returning to darkness. Someone was speaking to him… a female voice, calm and comforting. He could feel a gentle hand on his forehead, wiping away the perspiration. He gasped for breath, trembling as he focused desperately on her words, whoever she was. In the darkness, he could barely make out the outline of a figure in a white cap bending over him. He couldn’t see her face.

“It’s alright,” she murmured. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

“They’re dead,” he whispered wildly. “They’re all dead!”

“It’s alright. It’s over now.” She lay a firm hand on his shoulder, holding him down as he struggled to sit up. He fell back weakly, choking back a sob. 

“I saw them die,” he moaned. “They died all around me… they were blown to pieces… blood everywhere… the water was red, the sand was red… I couldn’t help them.”

“Shh. Don’t try to talk about it now. You need to get your rest.”

“Don’t leave me,” he sobbed, reaching out to catch her hand. He gripped it tightly, afraid she would vanish and he would find himself back on the battlefields again. She must be a vision… an angel of some kind.

“I’m here,” she answered softly, gently running her hand along his cheek. “I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

✯✯✯

"Relief, they say," Sandy grumbled, throwing another handful of sticks on a dying fire. "Rest, they say. What kinda relief 'n rest is this? Man, I hate this place. Not that I can see much of it..."

"I heartily second that opinion," Sam grinned wryly, swirling the last bit of coffee in his battered mug. He shifted sideways, kicking a pile of debris to the side. They were sitting in the middle of a charred street, in a shelled-out, blackened village. The houses stretched up to the night sky like the skeletons of giants, half tumbled into rubble. The building just across the street from them was now ripped jaggedly in half, and yet the remains of a comfortable home could still be seen. A four-poster bed still stood squarely in the middle of a first-floor room and a nightstand, still with framed photographs carefully arranged. In the next room over was a dainty sofa with a crocheted afghan draped over the arm, rows of well-stacked bookshelves, and even a piano with a vase of wilted flowers atop it. 

"Looks like one o' those museum things where the room is cut open so you can see inside," Ralph remarked. He had returned to his unit only a couple days after the invasion, his left arm and his head both bandaged, but he could still fight. He had begged them to let him go back. And now after days in and out of combat, traveling slowly across the French countryside, they had been let off the front for a couple days of rest. 

"Hope the family got out alright," Dan said softly, staring fixedly at a small doll lying with the debris in the gutter. He was thinking of his little Elsie. 

"Prayers for their safety," Sandy lifted his canteen as if in a toast. "Eh, Chief?" This last he spoke uncertainly, with a hopeful glance towards Ronnie. He was sitting with his head down, his face buried in his arms. He hadn't moved for the better part of an hour.

"Maybe he's asleep?" Sam said in a loud whisper. Sandy shrugged. 

"Maybe... Maybe not. He hasn't been the same since Torpedo..." Sam silenced him with a ferocious glare. If looks could kill, Sandy's name would've been added to the casualty list then and there. Ronnie glanced up at the mention of Torpedo, although he said nothing. He merely glanced in Sandy's direction with hollow, haunted eyes. He was looking at him without seeing him, and Sandy shivered. He didn't know what had gotten into Ronnie. He seemed fine in combat and had led them through dozens of skirmishes and battles since they had left the beaches. But when everything was quiet again and they had time for rest, he disappeared inside of himself and no one could pull him out again. 

"It's that thousand-yard-stare they've been talking about," Ralph muttered under his breath with a nod toward Ronnie. "Comes from all the fighting. He's losing it."

"Nah, couldn't be losing it," Sam whispered back. "Not Chief. He's just worn out, that's all. 'Specially with that lieutenant commission and all... He's got so much more to worry 'bout."

Ronnie stood, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked away from the campfire without a word. An eerie orange glow lit the horizon, signalling the nearness of the combat. Gunshots and explosions sounded a constant beat in the distance. And in the dark and silent heavens above, God looked down at the world at war... and wept.