Tell My Father
Title: Tell My Father
Author: crystalshard
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack
Warnings: None, set pre-series.
Summary: Passchendaele was like walking into hell, and Jack was there. But first, he needed to learn how to feel again.
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, it belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Many thanks to my betas jadesfire2808 and miss_zedem for poking, prodding and making me turn out a far better story.
We will remember them.
The field ambulance bumped slowly over the shell-pocked roads, and Jack bit back a groan as his wounded arm was jarred painfully in its sling. There was no noise at all from the others in the ambulance, not even from the young officer lying opposite him. The boy's legs were covered, but it was painfully apparent that they were shattered beyond use. Jack had seen injuries like this time and time again, when exploding shells had torn into groups of infantrymen. He knew that if the injured man survived, he'd be going home, and for a moment a flash of envy broke through his apathy.
Jack's diagnosis seemed to be echoed by the man he was sitting next to. "Reckon that's a Blighty one, eh, sir?" murmured the sergeant, who looked older than Jack's apparent age. The sergeant nodded his head at the young man, whose eyes were shut and his teeth clenched against the pain.
"I hope so, for his sake," Jack muttered in return. The ambulance banged down into another shell hole, and the lad bounced in place. A breeze cut through the open-backed vehicle; the air smelled of mud. Everything around them smelled of mud - their thickly-coated uniforms, the ambulance, themselves. Tracts of land which had once been farms had been demolished by the shelling, a few hardy tree-trunks poking bare and jagged out of the grey mud.
In the distance, he caught a glimpse of a steam train puffing its way along the rail tracks. A flash of red betrayed its Red Cross origins, the familiar symbol providing some protection against shelling and enemy bombers. With any luck, they'd all be on that train as soon as the casualty clearing station had dealt with their wounds.
Time hung suspended for a while. It was ten seconds and ten years later when the ambulance stopped and an orderly came up to their vehicle, hands and face scrubbed raw and emanating the antiseptic smell of Eusol. "Walking wounded to the right, please. Lying wounded will be carried to the left."
Jack turned, following the other soldiers out of the ambulance. The old sergeant stumbled as they headed for the waiting area - trench foot, he'd told Jack earlier. Jack grabbed him across the chest with his good arm, steadying him until he could walk again.
"Thanks, old son," the sergeant rumbled. Army discipline meant that the sergeant should be calling him 'sir, but Jack found that rank meant little right now. They were all sick or wounded, here. All in the same situation.
"You're welcome," Jack said, dredging up a smile from somewhere. It probably didn't look very genuine, but the effort had been made. Genuine smiles were rare currency, these days.
"At least it's a quiet time. Might get my feet treated properly this time," the sergeant continued, as if their arrival at the station had somehow freed him from some sort of self-imposed silence.
"I hope so," Jack replied briefly, too tired to smile this time.
Damn the mud. Damn Ypres. Damn Passchendaele.
* * *
The ambulance train puffed into the station and halted with a squeal of brakes. Jack jolted awake, uncertain of where he was or what time it was. It was dark outside the electrically lighted train, the dirty windows reflecting his own face back at him without giving him any clues. France. He was probably in France.
A door banged behind him, and he half-turned to see who it was. A woman in the garb of an Army Sister, one that he recognised from her patrols of the train. She'd handed out chocolate and cigarettes and fresh socks to those who asked, all three of which had been gratefully welcomed by the trench-weary troops. Jack hadn't turned down any of them, although the cigarette was still in his pocket in case he needed a small bribe later. Shifting to check if it was still there, he winced as the movement pulled at his injured arm. Ironic, really. While mortal wounds would heal within minutes, ordinary ones had to heal like any other human's. Doctor, what did you do to me? Was it you? Is this just some cruel practical joke of the universe?
Jack was pulled out of his musings by the Sister's voice. "This is your stop, men," she said, loudly enough to be heard. "No more travelling. The hospital's ready for you."
Jack shuffled upright, following the stream of uniforms heading out of the carriage. He'd lost track of the trench foot sergeant somewhere, and he wondered if the man was heading for the same hospital. He shrugged to himself. It didn't matter. The man would get treated sooner or later.
"And what's your name?"
Jack looked up blankly at the Voluntary Aid Detachment worker, wondering how he'd managed to get from the train to the door of the hospital without noticing. "Harkness. Captain Harkness. Captain Jack Harkness," he managed, his voice sounding rusty to his own ears. He managed regiment and list of injuries - bullet wounds, upper and lower right arm - and then the VAD nodded. "Thank you, Captain."
Somebody guided him up to the officer's ward - he didn't know who, and wouldn't have been able to describe him if asked. But there was a bathroom with a pitcher of warm water, a sponge, and clean pyjamas to replace his filthy uniform. Then there was a bed with a mattress and clean white sheets, and Jack sank into grateful sleep.
* * *
Jack sat up, drumming his heels against the metal frame of the hospital bed. He'd been here three days now, his wounds were healing cleanly, and he was bored.
"I say, old son, keep the noise down, will you?" The rumble of upper-class English accent came from the major next to him, who was being tended by the Ward Sister. Most of those around him had far worse injuries than him, and were content to doze in their beds.
The Sister attending to the major smiled slightly at the rebuke. "Stay still, please, Major. I've got to replace this dressing on your leg."
The major harrumphed, and the dressing slid aside again as he did do. The Sister, her hands occupied by the bandages, sighed.
"I could help," Jack offered, sliding off his bed. Before the Sister could object, he was standing behind her shoulder and reaching around her to hold the dressing in place. She took a short, sharp breath and then leaned forward to begin tying the bandages. Jack gallantly angled his body so that he wasn't touching her - he didn't want her distracted while she was doing her job. There'd be time for distraction later.
The thought almost startled Jack for a moment, followed by a flare of dismay. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd been interested in anybody. Had the war wiped him out that thoroughly? He hadn't thought so, up until now.
With Jack's help, the dressing was quickly secured in place. The major looked down at his leg and chuckled uneasily. "Thinking of becoming a VAD, now, Harkness?" he asked.
Jack bit back the response he wanted to make. "Couldn't stand seeing you give such a lovely nurse all that trouble," he said, sidestepping the question. He turned to the nurse. "And a very neat job you made of it, Sister . . . what was your name again?"
The woman flushed at his compliment, but before she could say anything a voice rang out in rebuke. "Sister Birchmore!" The word had been snapped from the other end of the ward. "What do you think you're doing?"
The woman who had sailed in was the Army Matron, and the Sister's face went from flushed to white within seconds. "I was replacing the dressing on the Major's leg . . ." she started.
"I can see what you're doing. My office, four o'clock."
The Sister scrambled out of the ward, Jack looking after her in surprise. "Look, it wasn't her fault," he began. "I gave her a hand with the dressing, that's all. I didn't even touch her."
"Hmm." The Matron frowned at him. "You, Captain, should be in bed."
"Well, if you're offering . . ." Jack grinned, but both the innuendo and the grin were more automatic than anything else. That, more than the Matron's narrowed eyes, told him how much he'd stopped feeling. Shaken, he dropped the grin and went for seriousness instead. "Matron, I'm bored. I'm useless here. All I can do is sleep and annoy the other officers. Let me help, please."
Later, Jack wondered if it was the 'please' that had convinced her of his sincerity, or the words 'let me help'. Possibly it was both.
There was a long pause before the Matron spoke. "If a nurse or Sister needs assistance in the ward, and there is no-one else available, then you may help. But you may not flirt with or otherwise interfere with the staff in their duties."
Jack confined himself to a short nod. "Understood, ma'am."
"Now get back in bed."
After a short time, two VADs came in to deal with the rest of the dressings. Jack got the point.
* * *
The young lieutenant that Jack was bending over was unconscious, and mercifully so judging by the ugly shrapnel wound that had been torn through his calf muscle. Jack, hands made surer by several days of unofficial practice, finished securing the neat bandage he'd put on the leg that he'd bathed and dressed. Two beds away, one of the VADs dealt with another shrapnel patient who'd arrived the day before yesterday.
"That's good, Captain." The voice made Jack jump, and he craned his head over his shoulder to find Sister Birchmore standing there. The approval in her voice warmed something grown cold in Jack. "You've made yourself useful around here."
"Hey, like I said, I hate being useless." Jack wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there, which disturbed him more than he'd admit. How was he meant to notice a hostile presence if he didn't even notice such a benign person as the Sister?
Before she could reply, an orderly dashed into the ward. "Sister, Nurse, we've got a train-load coming in. The word is that the offensive has picked up again. Matron says we need everybody, and she means everybody." He turned and ran out of the ward before waiting for a reply, and the two women shared a quick look. Then, turning away from Jack and their patient, they made for the door.
"Wait!"
The Sister turned back, her expression telling Jack that she hadn't welcomed the interruption. "What is it, Captain?"
"You heard him - they need everyone. Can I help?"
The two exchanged another glance, and then the Sister nodded.
* * *
The hospital was a site of barely controlled chaos. The wounded lay in silence on their stretchers - so silent that Jack couldn't stand it, wanted to tell them that it was okay to cry, that 'stiff upper lip' wasn't always the best way. But somehow it wasn't the silent ones who were the worst; the gas cases, gasping for breath, the oxygen masks only aggravating the mustard-coloured blisters on their faces, wrenched at his sympathies in a way he thought he'd become numb to. The stretcher-bound patients were being triaged by one of the surgeons, and Jack was moving among them, offering water and helping to dress the lesser wounds. With one arm partially out of action, he wasn't required to lift the stretchers, but whatever he did freed up that little bit of responsibility from the trained medical personnel.
The Matron had given him a sharp look and a nod when he'd turned up, and had indicated the wounded being brought in. The Colonel in charge of the hospital had hemmed and hawed about it not being a proper job for an officer, don'tcha know, but he'd given in when he'd seen how many stretcher cases they had.
"Captain, would you come here and hold this mask?" One of the Sisters, not one he knew, gestured urgently to him, and he nodded. Stepping around the stretchers, Jack crouched down to hold the mask in place. The gas victim was writhing in pain, skin burned and eyes blinded by the corrosive compound that had been fired via gas shell into the trenches. Jack realised with horror that the soldier couldn't be much more than a boy - around nineteen, if he'd been honest about his age, or younger if he hadn't. He'd known that the war was going badly, but he somehow hadn't made the connection that the High Command would turn a blind eye to children joining. He should have known. Hadn't the same thing happened on his homeworld?
The Sister pulled out a syringe, loading it with what they called 'morphia' in this day and age. The powerful opiate would stop the pain that the boy was feeling, at least for a while. Jack held the mask on with his right hand, using his uninjured left arm to hold the victim in place.
The Sister injected the young soldier quickly, then nodded to Jack and moved on to the next patient. As Jack waited for the morphia to kick in, an orderly stopped by the stretcher. "'Scuse me, sir, but the oxygen's needed," the orderly said apologetically. Jack nodded, letting him remove the apparatus, then stood to go.
"Wait."
The whisper was hoarse, breathless, and Jack immediately sank back to his knees. "I can't stay, son," Jack said, hating the situation that pulled him away from a boy who needed comfort. "There's other soldiers that need my help." He brushed the boy's hair back from his forehead, exposing still more of the ugly gas blisters.
"Please . . . please, sir. Tell my father . . . tell him that I died a man." The soldier coughed, a horrible noise that made his breath wheeze.
"I'll tell him," Jack reassured him, knowing that he probably couldn't.
"Thank you, sir." The soldier lay back, still trying to suck in air that didn't seem to reach his damaged lungs, exhausted from the effort of speaking. Jack reached out, then hesitated. He didn't know how to help this boy, but he wanted to. Wanted to tell him that it would be okay, that's he'd be fine, that . . .
"Captain, over here!"
Jack stood, turning unwillingly away from the boy. One among many, so many.
* * *
It was late when Jack stumbled back to the officer's ward, only to find a heavily bandaged lieutenant snoring in his bed. Piles of sheets were dotted all around the ward, and he stared blankly, wondered why they hadn't been picked up for washing yet.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and he spun on one heel. It was Sister Birchmore.
"There's a pallet bed set up for you in the corner, Captain," she said gently. She took his arm and Jack let her lead him down the ward. It was only then that he realised the dark lumps on the floor were men, not laundry. "Lieutenant Chadderston needed your bed more than you did. You're being moved down the line to a convalescent camp tomorrow."
Tomorrow? Jack blinked. They must be expecting more casualties if they were moving men out so quickly. "What about the kid I was talking to - the gas case?"
Sister Birchmore frowned. "Which one, Captain?" Then her expression cleared. "Oh. Do you mean the very young one?"
Jack didn't have the energy to nod. "That's him."
"He died a few hours ago." Her voice was matter-of-fact, and Jack was glad of that. He wasn't sure he could stand sympathy right now. Knowing that the boy was dead hurt more than he'd expected.
Belatedly, Jack remembered the young soldier's request. "Could you tell me his name?"
"No. I'm sorry, Captain. The mustard gas had washed out the ink on his identity tag." She stopped suddenly, and Jack swayed. "Here you are." She pulled back the blanket, and Jack collapsed thankfully onto the pallet. "Do you need anything?"
"Some company would be nice," he mumbled, more reflex than a true request.
She laughed, pulling the blanket over him. It wasn't much of a laugh, more of a breathy 'hah', but it was the first laugh Jack had heard all day. "You're a bad man, Captain. You've worked hard today, though. You deserve a treat, if anyone does. Cigarettes? Chocolate? Tea?"
Jack's eyes sought her face in the dim light. She looked drained, exhausted by more than just this day's work. He hadn't noticed before, but they all looked like that here. This war was taking everything that she could give, and then demanding more.
"No, I'm good," he said quietly, unwilling to wake the men around him. "I just need sleep. And you. You take care of yourself, okay?"
The corners of her mouth twitched. "I'll try. Make sure you do the same, Captain."
"Not a problem," he told her, already sinking into the welcome oblivion of sleep.
* * *
The man was dying under Jack's hands, his blood staining the mud of the battlefield a dull red. Shells rained down around them, and Jack cursed the stupid, senseless war for the thousandth time. Rain fell past his nose, but he ignored it. His uniform had long since grown saturated with the rain and the mud he'd been trying to push through.
He dragged the soldier into the nearest shell hole, ignoring the grunts of pain from the injured man. There was a dead infantryman there, only half-sunk into the water that covered the bottom of the hole, and Jack ripped the man's shirt off without compunction. He tried to bind the wound in the soldier's chest with the shirt, avoiding the fragment of shrapnel still lodged there.
"You are not going to die," Jack said fiercely. "C'mon, you, live!" Jack knew that he probably couldn't save him, but he wasn't going to stop trying. Not this time.
Down here, the whistle of shells and the thump of explosions was muted slightly. Enough for Jack to hear the man's last, whispered word.
"Danke."
Author's Note: I rarely credit my research sources for stories. But these ones had such an impact on me that I want to give them recognition.
Schoolboy Into War, H. E. L. Mellersh
The Roses Of No Man's Land, Lyn Macdonald
They Called It Passchendaele, Lyn Macdonald
Author: crystalshard
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack
Warnings: None, set pre-series.
Summary: Passchendaele was like walking into hell, and Jack was there. But first, he needed to learn how to feel again.
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, it belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Many thanks to my betas jadesfire2808 and miss_zedem for poking, prodding and making me turn out a far better story.
We will remember them.
The field ambulance bumped slowly over the shell-pocked roads, and Jack bit back a groan as his wounded arm was jarred painfully in its sling. There was no noise at all from the others in the ambulance, not even from the young officer lying opposite him. The boy's legs were covered, but it was painfully apparent that they were shattered beyond use. Jack had seen injuries like this time and time again, when exploding shells had torn into groups of infantrymen. He knew that if the injured man survived, he'd be going home, and for a moment a flash of envy broke through his apathy.
Jack's diagnosis seemed to be echoed by the man he was sitting next to. "Reckon that's a Blighty one, eh, sir?" murmured the sergeant, who looked older than Jack's apparent age. The sergeant nodded his head at the young man, whose eyes were shut and his teeth clenched against the pain.
"I hope so, for his sake," Jack muttered in return. The ambulance banged down into another shell hole, and the lad bounced in place. A breeze cut through the open-backed vehicle; the air smelled of mud. Everything around them smelled of mud - their thickly-coated uniforms, the ambulance, themselves. Tracts of land which had once been farms had been demolished by the shelling, a few hardy tree-trunks poking bare and jagged out of the grey mud.
In the distance, he caught a glimpse of a steam train puffing its way along the rail tracks. A flash of red betrayed its Red Cross origins, the familiar symbol providing some protection against shelling and enemy bombers. With any luck, they'd all be on that train as soon as the casualty clearing station had dealt with their wounds.
Time hung suspended for a while. It was ten seconds and ten years later when the ambulance stopped and an orderly came up to their vehicle, hands and face scrubbed raw and emanating the antiseptic smell of Eusol. "Walking wounded to the right, please. Lying wounded will be carried to the left."
Jack turned, following the other soldiers out of the ambulance. The old sergeant stumbled as they headed for the waiting area - trench foot, he'd told Jack earlier. Jack grabbed him across the chest with his good arm, steadying him until he could walk again.
"Thanks, old son," the sergeant rumbled. Army discipline meant that the sergeant should be calling him 'sir, but Jack found that rank meant little right now. They were all sick or wounded, here. All in the same situation.
"You're welcome," Jack said, dredging up a smile from somewhere. It probably didn't look very genuine, but the effort had been made. Genuine smiles were rare currency, these days.
"At least it's a quiet time. Might get my feet treated properly this time," the sergeant continued, as if their arrival at the station had somehow freed him from some sort of self-imposed silence.
"I hope so," Jack replied briefly, too tired to smile this time.
Damn the mud. Damn Ypres. Damn Passchendaele.
* * *
The ambulance train puffed into the station and halted with a squeal of brakes. Jack jolted awake, uncertain of where he was or what time it was. It was dark outside the electrically lighted train, the dirty windows reflecting his own face back at him without giving him any clues. France. He was probably in France.
A door banged behind him, and he half-turned to see who it was. A woman in the garb of an Army Sister, one that he recognised from her patrols of the train. She'd handed out chocolate and cigarettes and fresh socks to those who asked, all three of which had been gratefully welcomed by the trench-weary troops. Jack hadn't turned down any of them, although the cigarette was still in his pocket in case he needed a small bribe later. Shifting to check if it was still there, he winced as the movement pulled at his injured arm. Ironic, really. While mortal wounds would heal within minutes, ordinary ones had to heal like any other human's. Doctor, what did you do to me? Was it you? Is this just some cruel practical joke of the universe?
Jack was pulled out of his musings by the Sister's voice. "This is your stop, men," she said, loudly enough to be heard. "No more travelling. The hospital's ready for you."
Jack shuffled upright, following the stream of uniforms heading out of the carriage. He'd lost track of the trench foot sergeant somewhere, and he wondered if the man was heading for the same hospital. He shrugged to himself. It didn't matter. The man would get treated sooner or later.
"And what's your name?"
Jack looked up blankly at the Voluntary Aid Detachment worker, wondering how he'd managed to get from the train to the door of the hospital without noticing. "Harkness. Captain Harkness. Captain Jack Harkness," he managed, his voice sounding rusty to his own ears. He managed regiment and list of injuries - bullet wounds, upper and lower right arm - and then the VAD nodded. "Thank you, Captain."
Somebody guided him up to the officer's ward - he didn't know who, and wouldn't have been able to describe him if asked. But there was a bathroom with a pitcher of warm water, a sponge, and clean pyjamas to replace his filthy uniform. Then there was a bed with a mattress and clean white sheets, and Jack sank into grateful sleep.
* * *
Jack sat up, drumming his heels against the metal frame of the hospital bed. He'd been here three days now, his wounds were healing cleanly, and he was bored.
"I say, old son, keep the noise down, will you?" The rumble of upper-class English accent came from the major next to him, who was being tended by the Ward Sister. Most of those around him had far worse injuries than him, and were content to doze in their beds.
The Sister attending to the major smiled slightly at the rebuke. "Stay still, please, Major. I've got to replace this dressing on your leg."
The major harrumphed, and the dressing slid aside again as he did do. The Sister, her hands occupied by the bandages, sighed.
"I could help," Jack offered, sliding off his bed. Before the Sister could object, he was standing behind her shoulder and reaching around her to hold the dressing in place. She took a short, sharp breath and then leaned forward to begin tying the bandages. Jack gallantly angled his body so that he wasn't touching her - he didn't want her distracted while she was doing her job. There'd be time for distraction later.
The thought almost startled Jack for a moment, followed by a flare of dismay. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd been interested in anybody. Had the war wiped him out that thoroughly? He hadn't thought so, up until now.
With Jack's help, the dressing was quickly secured in place. The major looked down at his leg and chuckled uneasily. "Thinking of becoming a VAD, now, Harkness?" he asked.
Jack bit back the response he wanted to make. "Couldn't stand seeing you give such a lovely nurse all that trouble," he said, sidestepping the question. He turned to the nurse. "And a very neat job you made of it, Sister . . . what was your name again?"
The woman flushed at his compliment, but before she could say anything a voice rang out in rebuke. "Sister Birchmore!" The word had been snapped from the other end of the ward. "What do you think you're doing?"
The woman who had sailed in was the Army Matron, and the Sister's face went from flushed to white within seconds. "I was replacing the dressing on the Major's leg . . ." she started.
"I can see what you're doing. My office, four o'clock."
The Sister scrambled out of the ward, Jack looking after her in surprise. "Look, it wasn't her fault," he began. "I gave her a hand with the dressing, that's all. I didn't even touch her."
"Hmm." The Matron frowned at him. "You, Captain, should be in bed."
"Well, if you're offering . . ." Jack grinned, but both the innuendo and the grin were more automatic than anything else. That, more than the Matron's narrowed eyes, told him how much he'd stopped feeling. Shaken, he dropped the grin and went for seriousness instead. "Matron, I'm bored. I'm useless here. All I can do is sleep and annoy the other officers. Let me help, please."
Later, Jack wondered if it was the 'please' that had convinced her of his sincerity, or the words 'let me help'. Possibly it was both.
There was a long pause before the Matron spoke. "If a nurse or Sister needs assistance in the ward, and there is no-one else available, then you may help. But you may not flirt with or otherwise interfere with the staff in their duties."
Jack confined himself to a short nod. "Understood, ma'am."
"Now get back in bed."
After a short time, two VADs came in to deal with the rest of the dressings. Jack got the point.
* * *
The young lieutenant that Jack was bending over was unconscious, and mercifully so judging by the ugly shrapnel wound that had been torn through his calf muscle. Jack, hands made surer by several days of unofficial practice, finished securing the neat bandage he'd put on the leg that he'd bathed and dressed. Two beds away, one of the VADs dealt with another shrapnel patient who'd arrived the day before yesterday.
"That's good, Captain." The voice made Jack jump, and he craned his head over his shoulder to find Sister Birchmore standing there. The approval in her voice warmed something grown cold in Jack. "You've made yourself useful around here."
"Hey, like I said, I hate being useless." Jack wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there, which disturbed him more than he'd admit. How was he meant to notice a hostile presence if he didn't even notice such a benign person as the Sister?
Before she could reply, an orderly dashed into the ward. "Sister, Nurse, we've got a train-load coming in. The word is that the offensive has picked up again. Matron says we need everybody, and she means everybody." He turned and ran out of the ward before waiting for a reply, and the two women shared a quick look. Then, turning away from Jack and their patient, they made for the door.
"Wait!"
The Sister turned back, her expression telling Jack that she hadn't welcomed the interruption. "What is it, Captain?"
"You heard him - they need everyone. Can I help?"
The two exchanged another glance, and then the Sister nodded.
* * *
The hospital was a site of barely controlled chaos. The wounded lay in silence on their stretchers - so silent that Jack couldn't stand it, wanted to tell them that it was okay to cry, that 'stiff upper lip' wasn't always the best way. But somehow it wasn't the silent ones who were the worst; the gas cases, gasping for breath, the oxygen masks only aggravating the mustard-coloured blisters on their faces, wrenched at his sympathies in a way he thought he'd become numb to. The stretcher-bound patients were being triaged by one of the surgeons, and Jack was moving among them, offering water and helping to dress the lesser wounds. With one arm partially out of action, he wasn't required to lift the stretchers, but whatever he did freed up that little bit of responsibility from the trained medical personnel.
The Matron had given him a sharp look and a nod when he'd turned up, and had indicated the wounded being brought in. The Colonel in charge of the hospital had hemmed and hawed about it not being a proper job for an officer, don'tcha know, but he'd given in when he'd seen how many stretcher cases they had.
"Captain, would you come here and hold this mask?" One of the Sisters, not one he knew, gestured urgently to him, and he nodded. Stepping around the stretchers, Jack crouched down to hold the mask in place. The gas victim was writhing in pain, skin burned and eyes blinded by the corrosive compound that had been fired via gas shell into the trenches. Jack realised with horror that the soldier couldn't be much more than a boy - around nineteen, if he'd been honest about his age, or younger if he hadn't. He'd known that the war was going badly, but he somehow hadn't made the connection that the High Command would turn a blind eye to children joining. He should have known. Hadn't the same thing happened on his homeworld?
The Sister pulled out a syringe, loading it with what they called 'morphia' in this day and age. The powerful opiate would stop the pain that the boy was feeling, at least for a while. Jack held the mask on with his right hand, using his uninjured left arm to hold the victim in place.
The Sister injected the young soldier quickly, then nodded to Jack and moved on to the next patient. As Jack waited for the morphia to kick in, an orderly stopped by the stretcher. "'Scuse me, sir, but the oxygen's needed," the orderly said apologetically. Jack nodded, letting him remove the apparatus, then stood to go.
"Wait."
The whisper was hoarse, breathless, and Jack immediately sank back to his knees. "I can't stay, son," Jack said, hating the situation that pulled him away from a boy who needed comfort. "There's other soldiers that need my help." He brushed the boy's hair back from his forehead, exposing still more of the ugly gas blisters.
"Please . . . please, sir. Tell my father . . . tell him that I died a man." The soldier coughed, a horrible noise that made his breath wheeze.
"I'll tell him," Jack reassured him, knowing that he probably couldn't.
"Thank you, sir." The soldier lay back, still trying to suck in air that didn't seem to reach his damaged lungs, exhausted from the effort of speaking. Jack reached out, then hesitated. He didn't know how to help this boy, but he wanted to. Wanted to tell him that it would be okay, that's he'd be fine, that . . .
"Captain, over here!"
Jack stood, turning unwillingly away from the boy. One among many, so many.
* * *
It was late when Jack stumbled back to the officer's ward, only to find a heavily bandaged lieutenant snoring in his bed. Piles of sheets were dotted all around the ward, and he stared blankly, wondered why they hadn't been picked up for washing yet.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and he spun on one heel. It was Sister Birchmore.
"There's a pallet bed set up for you in the corner, Captain," she said gently. She took his arm and Jack let her lead him down the ward. It was only then that he realised the dark lumps on the floor were men, not laundry. "Lieutenant Chadderston needed your bed more than you did. You're being moved down the line to a convalescent camp tomorrow."
Tomorrow? Jack blinked. They must be expecting more casualties if they were moving men out so quickly. "What about the kid I was talking to - the gas case?"
Sister Birchmore frowned. "Which one, Captain?" Then her expression cleared. "Oh. Do you mean the very young one?"
Jack didn't have the energy to nod. "That's him."
"He died a few hours ago." Her voice was matter-of-fact, and Jack was glad of that. He wasn't sure he could stand sympathy right now. Knowing that the boy was dead hurt more than he'd expected.
Belatedly, Jack remembered the young soldier's request. "Could you tell me his name?"
"No. I'm sorry, Captain. The mustard gas had washed out the ink on his identity tag." She stopped suddenly, and Jack swayed. "Here you are." She pulled back the blanket, and Jack collapsed thankfully onto the pallet. "Do you need anything?"
"Some company would be nice," he mumbled, more reflex than a true request.
She laughed, pulling the blanket over him. It wasn't much of a laugh, more of a breathy 'hah', but it was the first laugh Jack had heard all day. "You're a bad man, Captain. You've worked hard today, though. You deserve a treat, if anyone does. Cigarettes? Chocolate? Tea?"
Jack's eyes sought her face in the dim light. She looked drained, exhausted by more than just this day's work. He hadn't noticed before, but they all looked like that here. This war was taking everything that she could give, and then demanding more.
"No, I'm good," he said quietly, unwilling to wake the men around him. "I just need sleep. And you. You take care of yourself, okay?"
The corners of her mouth twitched. "I'll try. Make sure you do the same, Captain."
"Not a problem," he told her, already sinking into the welcome oblivion of sleep.
* * *
The man was dying under Jack's hands, his blood staining the mud of the battlefield a dull red. Shells rained down around them, and Jack cursed the stupid, senseless war for the thousandth time. Rain fell past his nose, but he ignored it. His uniform had long since grown saturated with the rain and the mud he'd been trying to push through.
He dragged the soldier into the nearest shell hole, ignoring the grunts of pain from the injured man. There was a dead infantryman there, only half-sunk into the water that covered the bottom of the hole, and Jack ripped the man's shirt off without compunction. He tried to bind the wound in the soldier's chest with the shirt, avoiding the fragment of shrapnel still lodged there.
"You are not going to die," Jack said fiercely. "C'mon, you, live!" Jack knew that he probably couldn't save him, but he wasn't going to stop trying. Not this time.
Down here, the whistle of shells and the thump of explosions was muted slightly. Enough for Jack to hear the man's last, whispered word.
"Danke."
Author's Note: I rarely credit my research sources for stories. But these ones had such an impact on me that I want to give them recognition.
Schoolboy Into War, H. E. L. Mellersh
The Roses Of No Man's Land, Lyn Macdonald
They Called It Passchendaele, Lyn Macdonald