Now err'time she hear my name, she salute
For Felicia!
*It's not stated explicitly but the girl in whose pov this is written is named Rebecca and she's from England, close to Aldbourne (which is how she meets Joe when she signs up as a nurse). This is set after Holland but before Batogne (I'm still trying to do research that will help me narrow down a time and place >< lol it's harder than it should be given how famous these sons of bitches are :P) btw- this might turn into a series of vignettes but for now it's a one shot. Enjoy!
Sometimes, when it’s someone from second platoon, he helps drag one of the boys in. Their legs half blown off, backs resting on the splintered remains of a barn door. And Joe, hauling the upper left corner like a pallbearer. Can you imagine being the kid on the barn door? Thinking, this is what it’ll look like when they carry me out of the chapel,…this is what’s waiting for me back home. It’s a wonder they don’t just ask us to put them out of their misery right there. If you think about it, the one person who should be issued a shotgun in the army, is a nurse. I’d bet my life if you walked into any ward on the continent, all of them could point out at least three guys off the top of their heads who are in dire need of a glass of whiskey and a round to the head.
“You’re not getting enough to eat.” I murmur absently, as he stays behind to help me lift this latest grenade victim onto a bed. It’s obvious in the arms of his coat, filled with more air than skin tissue. And in the gauntness of his face, cheekbones a little more prominent than normal.
“I’m fine.” He grumbles on a breath, heaving the door over to rest against a wall.
“Is it bad? All I feel is the blood…oh God…Just tell me nurse, am I gunna die?” The soldier, Warren I think is his last name, pleads and whimpers while I try and stop the bleeding. It’s slow going because there’s blood everywhere (and it’s not just Warren’s), who really knows its exact origins.
“You’re gunna be just fine, soldier. Keep your eyes on the ceiling, count the beams for me. That’s a good man.” I tell him calmly, softly as I fix gauze to his knee. The cap is splintered, hanging off his leg at the mercy of fractured cartilage and ripped up muscle tissue. A few months ago this would have made the muscles in my stomach clench, the reflex in my throat gag hard until triggering bile. Not anymore. I should probably be grateful that I’ve developed this wall, but it just makes me feel like a monster.
I try not to think about the monster inside of the man I love as he stands just two and half feet away. The one who’s doing the same thing to the German sons and fathers that they just did to Warren. It’s easy to make excuses for him, given his heritage and the God-awful things they tell us about what Hitler’s plans really are for most of the world. But at the end of the day there’s no getting around the fact that Joey today would not fit perfectly inside of the boy I met in England. (God, I miss England.) Maybe he’s better because he’s gotten a few scars, learned lessons that have forged him into a man. Chances are good that he’s worse, because he’s a little less human than before.
Like I can talk. It’s the same for me. People stop becoming bundles of dreams and love and desire and laughter. They start becoming targets and stitches and bullet holes and morphine injections and Krauts and blood transfusions. Breaking the reality down to goals that don’t have a face or emotions or a family, it’s the only way we get through every minute here. It’s the only way we survive.
“What happened?” I look up at Joe, not sure why he’s still standing on the other side of the bed (it should be obvious but I’ve gotten so used to in and out, here then gone). Warren’s morphine is finally starting to kick in and he’s quickly falling out of consciousness.
“Northeast lines on the far side of the woods. We cut through, but they’re probably regrouping now. Those Kraut bastards’ll be back by nightfall.”
He doesn’t understand that I asked him a medical question. His brain is still in that frame of mind where it knows only mission objectives and mental maps, trying to keep up with the score as it changes around him second to second.
“Where’s Roe?” I’m hoping Eugene will at least be able to fix a proper splint on this kid. He came in with two pieces of wood strapped to his leg by a belt. I want to undo it myself but I’m scared because my hands are always shaking, so setting fractures isn’t exactly my specialty. I talk a good talk with my calm voice and steady gaze, but my hands haven’t stopped shaking since I saw Joe board those first planes back in Uppotery. It’s not a good trait for a nurse to have, but the army would take a trained chimpanzee at this point if it knew which veins to stick the I.V. in.
“Ah, he’s…” Joey’s hand waves absently, shoulders shrugging in that oversized coat as he fits a cigarette between his lips (they look chapped). The lighter cap snaps before he shoves it back into his pocket, a move that he’s clearly had far too much practice perfecting. “You know, he’s around.”
Typical Joey answer, and I have to fight a smile. It’s not fair that the only times we see each other anymore are when someone’s dying or he’s got a damn shell in his neck or the Germans are lighting up this tiny, poor excuse for a town with fireworks.
“I have to get some supplies from the back, Corporal, why don’t you help me.” I’m afraid to call him by his name in the ward. Getting personal is a slippery slope here and you learn to resist it. He follows, nodding silently as he takes the cigarette from his mouth, breathes out a small cloud of smoke while tapping the ash onto the floor. He has no idea how hard he’s making it not to just pull him against me by that stupid coat and kiss him in front of the entire station. I’ve never been a fan of the fact that he smokes, but I keep my mouth shut just because of how much I love to watch him do it. It’s selfish, but it’s not like he’s gunna stop anyway. And with the shit he sees, no one really has the right to ask him just yet.
When we get to the supply closet, I can already see the hope in his eyes. ‘Help me in the back’ is our code for: I saved some scraps of food or swiped a few cigarettes off a dead soldier. Digging around, I pull a box of supplies up onto the table and he comes around to my left so that I’m between him and the door. Not that they would fire me or anything (we’re already understaffed as it is), but still. The last thing I want to do is get Joe in trouble or encourage the other nurses to steal from dead men.
“I know it’s not much, but…” The baguette is eight days old and the cured pork is starting to smell questionable but it’s already in his mouth. Living in this town (with its one main road and lone chapel) has its advantages. The locals dote on us nurses like we’re angles. I suppose for some of them, we are. They don’t see our boys enough to give them much, but we know they would if they could. I figure there’s no reason why we can’t act as a sort of middle man. Kissing his cheek, I whisper before grabbing the box and heading for the door. “I’ll be right back.”
There are even more men in the ward now and the chaos grabs me like a riptide, refusing to let go even as everything under my skin keeps trying to tug me toward the supply room like a compass needle struggling to point North. Most of the nurses stay calm, even as hardened soldiers fall apart under our hands. I keep waiting for the building to shake, for mortars to start going off. And then I’ll turn and see Joey’s black hair headed for the door as he runs out, that ratty coat still hanging off of his body. Just like always.
By the time things calm down enough, I’m weary from too many adrenaline highs. I have no idea what time of day it is, but I’d sell my soul just to collapse to the floor. In my exhaustions I fail to notice that the shades on the supply closet door and windows have been pulled. When strong, cold hands pull me inside, locking the knob behind me, I don’t even fight. This is so stupid, I have to get back to work, but I don’t have the strength or the will to push him away.
His chapped lips taste of salt and the chill in the air outside and dirt. Fisting his coat in my hands, I try and pull him as close as possible. The scent of sweat and blood and gunpowder fill my nose and I try to kiss him deeper, looking for the taste of our first kiss. English rain and aftershave cologne and a whole different kind of cold. The full-bodied kind that means no harm, that doesn’t cut into your skin like it does here. But that seemed to be the only thing I could find as my hands slid beneath his jacket, hooked around his neck, combed up through his thick, dark hair. Frozen clothes, frozen skin, frozen dogtags. And all in a way that seemed they would never thaw.
“You’re so cold.” I mumbled across his jaw line. As we backed into a table, the muscles in his arms grew taught around me, lifting me up. His fingers, still like ice, slide up my thigh and take the white skirt of my uniform with them.
“I’ll be warm in a couple of minutes.” He chuckles, low in my ear as his nose nuzzles the warm skin of my neck, taking such deep breaths you’d think he was trying to get high off the scent of my soap and shampoo. I guess maybe, in a way, he was.
“Joey…” My eyelids flutter closed and I can feel my heart stuttering, my lungs contracting of their own accord almost too deeply for me to keep up with. It’s good to feel his name on my tongue again, as his slowly thawing fingers try to undo the buttons of my dress. Suddenly my mouth is against his again and it’s almost as if we’re doing battle. I probably should have seen it coming because I know I’m the only person who calls him Joey, and I know it drives him crazy to hear it under any circumstances (let alone when we’re locked in a dark supply closet). But his mouth still takes me by surprise.
However, that surprise is nothing compared to the mortar that hits ground someplace not quite far enough from the south side of the building. My body jumps away from his as I look around trying to gauge where it came from. The man in front of me doesn’t so much as flinch and when my attention finally falls back to him he’s just looking up with big, brown eyes. If you woke a kid up on Christmas and told them that Santa died before he could deliver the presents, you couldn’t get him to look more disappointed than Joe did right then. His face didn’t show much of it because he’d learned to hide most of his emotions pretty well. But those god damn eyes…
“This is the part where you leave, right?” I mumble, my voice sounding almost too empty for sadness as I comb his hair back with my fingers. I still hadn’t figured out why they let him keep his hair so long. But I sure as hell wasn’t complaining.
“And then promise to come back, but never do.” He nods, and I can almost feel the guilt radiating from him as he forces himself to back off, throwing his gun back over his shoulder. Over the top of the ward another bomb howls in agony, knowing that it’s falling toward its death. Landing southeast of us, I feel the ground shake, glass bottles and needles clinking together all around us.
Jumping down from the table I do up the buttons on my dress as he goes to the door. He stops there, watching me and waiting.
“I will be back.”
Forcing a smile, I close the space between us and kiss him with as much love and passion as I know how before pulling back. Letting go of a sigh, I reach for the door and undo the lock, pushing it open. All around the ward nurses are scurrying between the rows of beds, trying desperately to take cover. Their shouts echo off the cold cement walls, some in English, most in French. Compared to the solace of the supply closet it seems like an entirely different world. As soon as I cross the threshold of the door, that other world, the one full of nothing but Joe’s fingers on my skin, my arms locked around him, his nose nuzzling into the crook of my neck, the taste of salt on his full, chapped lips will slip away. Sure, he’ll come back around. In about two weeks, maybe just one if the Gods are feeling particularly gracious.
“Go.” I urge him softly, because he doesn’t seem to be able to move, even as the ceiling shakes from the explosion of another mortar on the main road. As he starts jogging towards the door, gun in hand, I crouch in the entryway of the supply closet. Folding my knees against his chest, I watch him pause at the steps, taking in the scene around him. He analyzes the spread and makes a decision to run out there in less than two seconds. In between fear for my own life and the longing for his skin that’s already creeping up on me, a little surge of pride wells in my heart. He’s smarter than he realizes, so much braver than he knows. Just before disappearing, he turns his head and meets my gaze. One moment he’s throwing me a self-assured wink and a cocky smirk that’s supposed to be comforting. The next, he’s gone.
*It's not stated explicitly but the girl in whose pov this is written is named Rebecca and she's from England, close to Aldbourne (which is how she meets Joe when she signs up as a nurse). This is set after Holland but before Batogne (I'm still trying to do research that will help me narrow down a time and place >< lol it's harder than it should be given how famous these sons of bitches are :P) btw- this might turn into a series of vignettes but for now it's a one shot. Enjoy!
Sometimes, when it’s someone from second platoon, he helps drag one of the boys in. Their legs half blown off, backs resting on the splintered remains of a barn door. And Joe, hauling the upper left corner like a pallbearer. Can you imagine being the kid on the barn door? Thinking, this is what it’ll look like when they carry me out of the chapel,…this is what’s waiting for me back home. It’s a wonder they don’t just ask us to put them out of their misery right there. If you think about it, the one person who should be issued a shotgun in the army, is a nurse. I’d bet my life if you walked into any ward on the continent, all of them could point out at least three guys off the top of their heads who are in dire need of a glass of whiskey and a round to the head.
“You’re not getting enough to eat.” I murmur absently, as he stays behind to help me lift this latest grenade victim onto a bed. It’s obvious in the arms of his coat, filled with more air than skin tissue. And in the gauntness of his face, cheekbones a little more prominent than normal.
“I’m fine.” He grumbles on a breath, heaving the door over to rest against a wall.
“Is it bad? All I feel is the blood…oh God…Just tell me nurse, am I gunna die?” The soldier, Warren I think is his last name, pleads and whimpers while I try and stop the bleeding. It’s slow going because there’s blood everywhere (and it’s not just Warren’s), who really knows its exact origins.
“You’re gunna be just fine, soldier. Keep your eyes on the ceiling, count the beams for me. That’s a good man.” I tell him calmly, softly as I fix gauze to his knee. The cap is splintered, hanging off his leg at the mercy of fractured cartilage and ripped up muscle tissue. A few months ago this would have made the muscles in my stomach clench, the reflex in my throat gag hard until triggering bile. Not anymore. I should probably be grateful that I’ve developed this wall, but it just makes me feel like a monster.
I try not to think about the monster inside of the man I love as he stands just two and half feet away. The one who’s doing the same thing to the German sons and fathers that they just did to Warren. It’s easy to make excuses for him, given his heritage and the God-awful things they tell us about what Hitler’s plans really are for most of the world. But at the end of the day there’s no getting around the fact that Joey today would not fit perfectly inside of the boy I met in England. (God, I miss England.) Maybe he’s better because he’s gotten a few scars, learned lessons that have forged him into a man. Chances are good that he’s worse, because he’s a little less human than before.
Like I can talk. It’s the same for me. People stop becoming bundles of dreams and love and desire and laughter. They start becoming targets and stitches and bullet holes and morphine injections and Krauts and blood transfusions. Breaking the reality down to goals that don’t have a face or emotions or a family, it’s the only way we get through every minute here. It’s the only way we survive.
“What happened?” I look up at Joe, not sure why he’s still standing on the other side of the bed (it should be obvious but I’ve gotten so used to in and out, here then gone). Warren’s morphine is finally starting to kick in and he’s quickly falling out of consciousness.
“Northeast lines on the far side of the woods. We cut through, but they’re probably regrouping now. Those Kraut bastards’ll be back by nightfall.”
He doesn’t understand that I asked him a medical question. His brain is still in that frame of mind where it knows only mission objectives and mental maps, trying to keep up with the score as it changes around him second to second.
“Where’s Roe?” I’m hoping Eugene will at least be able to fix a proper splint on this kid. He came in with two pieces of wood strapped to his leg by a belt. I want to undo it myself but I’m scared because my hands are always shaking, so setting fractures isn’t exactly my specialty. I talk a good talk with my calm voice and steady gaze, but my hands haven’t stopped shaking since I saw Joe board those first planes back in Uppotery. It’s not a good trait for a nurse to have, but the army would take a trained chimpanzee at this point if it knew which veins to stick the I.V. in.
“Ah, he’s…” Joey’s hand waves absently, shoulders shrugging in that oversized coat as he fits a cigarette between his lips (they look chapped). The lighter cap snaps before he shoves it back into his pocket, a move that he’s clearly had far too much practice perfecting. “You know, he’s around.”
Typical Joey answer, and I have to fight a smile. It’s not fair that the only times we see each other anymore are when someone’s dying or he’s got a damn shell in his neck or the Germans are lighting up this tiny, poor excuse for a town with fireworks.
“I have to get some supplies from the back, Corporal, why don’t you help me.” I’m afraid to call him by his name in the ward. Getting personal is a slippery slope here and you learn to resist it. He follows, nodding silently as he takes the cigarette from his mouth, breathes out a small cloud of smoke while tapping the ash onto the floor. He has no idea how hard he’s making it not to just pull him against me by that stupid coat and kiss him in front of the entire station. I’ve never been a fan of the fact that he smokes, but I keep my mouth shut just because of how much I love to watch him do it. It’s selfish, but it’s not like he’s gunna stop anyway. And with the shit he sees, no one really has the right to ask him just yet.
When we get to the supply closet, I can already see the hope in his eyes. ‘Help me in the back’ is our code for: I saved some scraps of food or swiped a few cigarettes off a dead soldier. Digging around, I pull a box of supplies up onto the table and he comes around to my left so that I’m between him and the door. Not that they would fire me or anything (we’re already understaffed as it is), but still. The last thing I want to do is get Joe in trouble or encourage the other nurses to steal from dead men.
“I know it’s not much, but…” The baguette is eight days old and the cured pork is starting to smell questionable but it’s already in his mouth. Living in this town (with its one main road and lone chapel) has its advantages. The locals dote on us nurses like we’re angles. I suppose for some of them, we are. They don’t see our boys enough to give them much, but we know they would if they could. I figure there’s no reason why we can’t act as a sort of middle man. Kissing his cheek, I whisper before grabbing the box and heading for the door. “I’ll be right back.”
There are even more men in the ward now and the chaos grabs me like a riptide, refusing to let go even as everything under my skin keeps trying to tug me toward the supply room like a compass needle struggling to point North. Most of the nurses stay calm, even as hardened soldiers fall apart under our hands. I keep waiting for the building to shake, for mortars to start going off. And then I’ll turn and see Joey’s black hair headed for the door as he runs out, that ratty coat still hanging off of his body. Just like always.
By the time things calm down enough, I’m weary from too many adrenaline highs. I have no idea what time of day it is, but I’d sell my soul just to collapse to the floor. In my exhaustions I fail to notice that the shades on the supply closet door and windows have been pulled. When strong, cold hands pull me inside, locking the knob behind me, I don’t even fight. This is so stupid, I have to get back to work, but I don’t have the strength or the will to push him away.
His chapped lips taste of salt and the chill in the air outside and dirt. Fisting his coat in my hands, I try and pull him as close as possible. The scent of sweat and blood and gunpowder fill my nose and I try to kiss him deeper, looking for the taste of our first kiss. English rain and aftershave cologne and a whole different kind of cold. The full-bodied kind that means no harm, that doesn’t cut into your skin like it does here. But that seemed to be the only thing I could find as my hands slid beneath his jacket, hooked around his neck, combed up through his thick, dark hair. Frozen clothes, frozen skin, frozen dogtags. And all in a way that seemed they would never thaw.
“You’re so cold.” I mumbled across his jaw line. As we backed into a table, the muscles in his arms grew taught around me, lifting me up. His fingers, still like ice, slide up my thigh and take the white skirt of my uniform with them.
“I’ll be warm in a couple of minutes.” He chuckles, low in my ear as his nose nuzzles the warm skin of my neck, taking such deep breaths you’d think he was trying to get high off the scent of my soap and shampoo. I guess maybe, in a way, he was.
“Joey…” My eyelids flutter closed and I can feel my heart stuttering, my lungs contracting of their own accord almost too deeply for me to keep up with. It’s good to feel his name on my tongue again, as his slowly thawing fingers try to undo the buttons of my dress. Suddenly my mouth is against his again and it’s almost as if we’re doing battle. I probably should have seen it coming because I know I’m the only person who calls him Joey, and I know it drives him crazy to hear it under any circumstances (let alone when we’re locked in a dark supply closet). But his mouth still takes me by surprise.
However, that surprise is nothing compared to the mortar that hits ground someplace not quite far enough from the south side of the building. My body jumps away from his as I look around trying to gauge where it came from. The man in front of me doesn’t so much as flinch and when my attention finally falls back to him he’s just looking up with big, brown eyes. If you woke a kid up on Christmas and told them that Santa died before he could deliver the presents, you couldn’t get him to look more disappointed than Joe did right then. His face didn’t show much of it because he’d learned to hide most of his emotions pretty well. But those god damn eyes…
“This is the part where you leave, right?” I mumble, my voice sounding almost too empty for sadness as I comb his hair back with my fingers. I still hadn’t figured out why they let him keep his hair so long. But I sure as hell wasn’t complaining.
“And then promise to come back, but never do.” He nods, and I can almost feel the guilt radiating from him as he forces himself to back off, throwing his gun back over his shoulder. Over the top of the ward another bomb howls in agony, knowing that it’s falling toward its death. Landing southeast of us, I feel the ground shake, glass bottles and needles clinking together all around us.
Jumping down from the table I do up the buttons on my dress as he goes to the door. He stops there, watching me and waiting.
“I will be back.”
Forcing a smile, I close the space between us and kiss him with as much love and passion as I know how before pulling back. Letting go of a sigh, I reach for the door and undo the lock, pushing it open. All around the ward nurses are scurrying between the rows of beds, trying desperately to take cover. Their shouts echo off the cold cement walls, some in English, most in French. Compared to the solace of the supply closet it seems like an entirely different world. As soon as I cross the threshold of the door, that other world, the one full of nothing but Joe’s fingers on my skin, my arms locked around him, his nose nuzzling into the crook of my neck, the taste of salt on his full, chapped lips will slip away. Sure, he’ll come back around. In about two weeks, maybe just one if the Gods are feeling particularly gracious.
“Go.” I urge him softly, because he doesn’t seem to be able to move, even as the ceiling shakes from the explosion of another mortar on the main road. As he starts jogging towards the door, gun in hand, I crouch in the entryway of the supply closet. Folding my knees against his chest, I watch him pause at the steps, taking in the scene around him. He analyzes the spread and makes a decision to run out there in less than two seconds. In between fear for my own life and the longing for his skin that’s already creeping up on me, a little surge of pride wells in my heart. He’s smarter than he realizes, so much braver than he knows. Just before disappearing, he turns his head and meets my gaze. One moment he’s throwing me a self-assured wink and a cocky smirk that’s supposed to be comforting. The next, he’s gone.