Story: Belleau Wood.
This is mostly Ketchgirl’s fault.
(I like being able to blame people for things.)
It’s been about a month in the writing and has so far resulted in three nightmares, two full-blown hallucinations, countless hours of research, a goodly amount of anguish, the acquisition of a soldier’s coat, a sam brown belt and a rusted bayonet. Which is quite a lot for a story that was only supposed to be a throw away bit of fluff. (And no, it probably wasn't worth it, and likely needs more editing, but never mind.)
As such, darlings - yes, you lot, you bastards - I’d be inordinately grateful if you’d read it and then leave a note to say what you thought.
The story is set in this world during WWI, with the addition of certain individuals who are exceptionally long lived (300 years or so) and have a specific ability and a specific weakness. Their abilities are fuelled by the lifeforce of others. That should be all you need to start you off...
Clockwise from upper left: Preacher Morrow & Cait, Southern cross and gun, HellBitch, Morrow as Marine Captain, Village of Belleau.
Significant music to listen to quietly whilst reading if you so wish:
Close to the Madera Canyon, Arizona, September 1917.
The days were golden, caught between summer’s spell and winter’s bite; her favourite time of the year, but her smile had been absent ever since Preach returned, riding Tennyson back from town. She’d known something was up: known from HB’s flattened ears and reluctant paws, known from the shadow in Preach’s eyes and his too bright smile as he kissed her. And now she knew the cause of it.
She tossed the official missive down on the table with indifference but her attention caught in the way Preach’s narrow fingers left his coffee cup to pick it up, as if it was a piece of paper he expected to be doing things with. “You wouldn’t pass the medical,” she stated, callousness striving to mask her unease.
Nonchalant in shirt sleeves and britches, Preacher Morrow’s gaze was for the paper in his hands. “Well now darlin’ that’s the drawback o’havin’ someone badger you into good health. Mean’s a body’s healthy.”
Her jaw had dropped, a thin split of stark surprise. “The devil in y’lungs...”
“Remission,” he said simply. A blank sly look cast in her direction: “Was what you were anglin’ for, ain’t it?”
Had she moved she was sure her feet would trip, legs refuse to hold her up. For not the first time she felt sucker-punched by the universe. “You still got TB!”
A crooked smile. “When was the last time I spat blood or passed out?” A gentler and more jagged smile by far. “When’s the last time you heard me cough, darlin’?”
She calculated, numbly doing the maths.
“Devil’s still there, sure,” he admitted easily, “But ain’t no one gonna find it just by listenin’ without a fancy test.” He looked up at last to meet the turbulent twisting of her features and the horrified glare of her eyes. “Not least I raise the Storm.”
Raising the Storm - the unleashing of his power in a torrent so wild and swift there was a damn good chance it would kill him. No, she wouldn’t ask him to do that, not for such askewed and self-serving purposes. But that didn’t mean she was going to let him go to war on the government’s say so. She wished now - futile and fervent - that she had gone to town instead of him, picked up post and supplies and lost the damn letter in the nearest creek before he’d ever set eyes on it.
He tried to placate her. “Ain’t like they’re pickin’ on me, darlin’. Any man from eighteen t’forty five has t’...”
That sparked her to fury. “You ain’t forty five - you’re fuckin’ well one hundred and sixty seven!”
“Sixty six, but it ain’t what my papers say,” he replied with an equanimity that confounded and incensed her. He rubbed a hand across the neat triangle of his imperial beard. “How exactly am I supposed to alert them t’the error o’their ways?”
What did she care? “Don’t go,” she told him without missing a beat.
He gazed back at her, expression carefully neutral.
“Don’t.” Her voice was strained because she knew his mind was already made up. “It’s hell there.” Her eyes rolled back and her hands hovered over the earth like one gauging the temperature of a stove, heat searing their palms. “Can you hear ‘em?” she demanded hoarsely. “I can. They never stop screamin’...” She shuddered, coming back to herself. “You go, you’ll die,” she prophesied. “They all die.”
“It’s called conscription darlin’,” he said brusquely. “It ain’t known for it’s voluntary aspect.”
“So we can leave,” she told him with an edge of urgency. “Ain’t the first time we lit outta somewhere. We’ll disappear... Arizona’s so full o’sky an’ land ain’t never be they’ll track it all. We could stay at Larabee’s place - patch it up some and...”
“And what sort of man would I be,” Preach interrupted softly, “if I turned tail and left everyone else t’fight?”
“A living one!” she hissed back, her shoulders and spine arching forward just like Spindle’s did when the bobcat was in a snit.
A crooked and empty smile. “Ain’t doin’ this f’glory darlin’ not for morals either. Doin’ it ‘cause it ain’t right f’ a man to walk away from his responsibility. Besides, if this is what has been keepin’ you up all those nights an’ eatin’ away at you, don’t y’think it’s high time I fixed it?” One eyebrow was slightly raised, the beginnings of a sardonic smile at the edges of his mouth.
“I don’t fuckin’ care about sleepin!” she all but screamed at him. “I fuckin’ care about you!” She had that look to her again, wild and desperate and willing to bet anything so long as she won the hand.
Last time she’d been like that there’d been a Mexican stand-off with a box of tacks; he’d won, but only by dint of being a bigger bastard than she. (He had thrice her years and experience after all.) And although thanks to Crowfeather, Cait likely surpassed him these days not only in strength but in experience, he had subtler ways to strike than a tack through the heart.
He let his head tip to the side as he regarded her, heavy as fate, sorrowful as a sigh. “Oh, Cinnamon Cait,” he murmured.
And she knew, just like that time back in Rose Vale Ridge, she’d already lost.
==========
Beaugrenier, France, May 1918.
They were idle, grateful for the rest. “You hear about Sims?” Archer asked.
“Who?”
“Simple - you know, Hal Sims, got those chickens for us back at Marne.”
“Simple! Yeah, yeah.” Pierce grinned around his cigarette. “Those chickens were top. What about him?”
“Caught it two weeks back near Thierry. Goddamn shell hit right next to him. There wasn’t enough of him left t’fill a woollen sock.”
“Fuck me,” he muttered with reflexive reverence.
“Figure I owe the Boche a few for that - was the best quatermaster’s runner in the damn battalion - lousy shot though.”
“Yeah... Did they bury it?” Pierce took another drag on his smoke. “The sock?”
“How’d I know? I guess.”
A pause. “In a full grave?”
“How the fuck do I know?” He scratched at his head, fingers rasping against his short-shorn hair. “Yeah, maybe. Why?”
“Just seems a bit of a waste is all.”
His comrade looked at him in surprise for several seconds before bursting out laughing. “Christ!” he choked.
“What?”
“Stand to for inspection!” came the shout from the Sergeant as he stormed past. “Tighten up you bunch of whoresons - brass coming through.”
They scrambled to their feet. “Who pissed in his coffee?”
“Sarge is sore ‘cos Captain Williams was replaced last night - hand was blown clean off when that barrage came over at ten.”
“Shit,” the other swore, part annoyance, part sympathy.
“Yeah, Sarge...”
But Archer’s comment about the Sergeant’s hatred of breaking in boots and officers at short notice was never made as the man himself returned, as raw-boned and as brick-fisted as ever. “Attention!” he yelled.
Pierce tossed away the last of his cigarette; they snapped straight, as close to model soldiers as they could make it after several months in the field.
Out of the twilight walked their new CO, a pale and wolfish Alsatian trotting close by his boots. Despite the season he wore a winter campaign greatcoat, buttoned neat against the evening. He was older than Captain Williams, past forty, his hair shot with silver, his face a little haggard. His eyes were clear, bright and of the most remarkable cobalt. He was lean, and the narrow breadth of his shoulders leant him both grace and the illusion of greater height. “At ease. I’m Captain Morrow, I’ll be replacing Williams and taking you to Lucy le Bocarge. We march at seven.”
His voice was as Southern as the Rebel Cross, but there was nothing of the hayseed about him, his accent had a clipped aristocratic edge to it and his words rolled like gentle thunder, like the purr of an aging lion. (There was little else leonine about him but, it was agreed, there was much of the storm about him. A dry summer tempest that lit out of nowhere and dropped right on top of you, barely a lick of rain but so much light and spark it was like phosphor burning against your eyelids.)
“I trust you t’know your business, an’ if you don’t, no doubt Sergeant Faulkner will set you right.”
The Sergeant glowered at the men making it clear he’d pistol whip anyone who showed him up poorly to the new brass.
“I require three things of you. I require your respect,” a barely there twitch of a smile, “something I’ll take as a loan f’now until I’ve earnt it. I require your obedience - when I say stay down you stay down, run, you run, because you will have to trust that I can see further than you can and my orders are given with the express purpose of killing the enemy, and keeping all of you alive. And last but in no means least, I require your courage - and I know no man here will disappoint me.” He studied them for a second or so although it was hard to read his thoughts on what he found. “In return, I will offer you three things - my oath on each. I will never ask you to do anything I would not. I will never abandon you. And I will do everything in my power to keep you alive and bring you home.”
Pierce shivered; such a thing should be an idle boast, a stupid sententious lie to get them all on side. But the feeling in those words, the conviction behind them, damnit if that didn’t lance right down his spine.
There was another long moment of silence as he regarded them each in turn, as if seeking to cement his words in their memories. At last he nodded - the slightest dip of the chin to them - a curt ‘carry on’ to the Sergeant and he left, striding back to his dug-out, the ghost-dog loping at his heels.
Archer shook his head and muttered, “Craziest goddamn speech I ever heard.”
==========
From the diary of Private Pierce, 3rd Battalion 5th Marines under Major Carlton.
29th May - 2nd June 1918.
Due to new brass Faulkner was riding us hard, checking everything five times straight; had us stood by to move the moment word was given. Left Beaugrenier at 5:30 and hiked along the Paris-Dieppe Road where we embarked in camions. Wish we’d marched.
All afternoon we met a continuous stream of civilians flocking to the rear in all sorts of conveyances. Many walking and leading dogs, goats, cows, horses, whatever they can take with them. Some wheeling baby carriages loaded with a few choice articles they’d saved. Christ. Such a scene. It’s like this whole country’s on the move. They all had their heads held high though, I’ll give them that.
Rode all day ‘til after midnight - those damn motors rattle like anything, my ass feels black and blue. Halted beside the road. Captain sent word we were only stopping long enough to make a final re-supply before Lucy le Bocarge. To the North and East the sky was red with the light of the burning villages. Guns too far off yet to be heard flashed like fire-flies - real pretty if you didn’t think about it too hard. We flopped beside the road, so damn tired and jolted up (those camions don’t have a fucking spring between them). A Boche plane buzzed by overhead, circling, looking to get lucky. Sergeant Faulkner tried to get us to scramble but Captain Morrow waylayed it - called out something like ‘He’s playin’ pin th’ tail on the fuckin’ donkey, don’t pay ‘im no mind,’ in that crazy drawl of his. Fritz dropped a handful of bombs through the dark at us, but the Captain’s calm was infectious and everyone just lay there, still talking and smoking like they were too tired to take any notice - bombs missed us too.
We were off again in the morning. Stopped briefly on the way where we did our first salvaging. Everyone grabbed themselves a `bon' lot. Disembarked from camion about 4:30 at corner of Lucy and Paris-Metz Road, immediately formed a line in valley between Lucy le Bocarge and Bouresches. A few isolated French units were still among the marines. Next morning when the Germans (held up by night) attacked about 8am, the French got the first of it and there aren’t more of them left than you’d count on fingers and toes. When the first push was done there was nothing but a line of marines to stop the Boche - a pretty thin line at that - but God in heaven, they attacked in mass formation and we mowed them down like hay.
I don’t know how we did it. I shouldn’t write such a thing - but I’ve never seen anything like it - it was almost pitiful.
They came over the top of the ridge and down into the valley and the town of Bouresches in a regular stream ~ long thick lines of slow-moving grey. They had plenty of support from their artillery - bastards must have watched us set up: they’d figured to pound the shit out of our position before their troops had marched in range, then they’d swarm in and finish off our slim pickings. Didn’t happen like that. The artillery never touched us - fuck knows how - wrong coordinates, galeforce headwinds, the wings on an angel, I’ve no fucking idea how those barrages missed. Sound and fury all around us, Sergeant screaming for us to hold steady and I realize no one else is screaming - no choking cries of those who are missing limbs and organs, no shouts of the dying because not a one of us has died. We’d dug in good; the Boche got all the way down to the lee of the hill before they could fire a rifle shot worth a damn... by then they were hard up against our Lewis guns which cut them to ribbons. Like Archer said, it was a fucking harvest.
We were tired but in good spirits, Sergeant Faulkner kept it tight though.
Was made section runner - no rest for the wicked. Went out on run at night but section had moved forward and to the left so went wandering until I found them. There were no signs of trenches of any sort; went strolling out into No Mans Land before I finally located them. Sergeant would pitch a fit but he was already having one over the Captain. Morrow was coughing like he’d been gassed and that dog of his was growling and wouldn’t budge an inch from his side, looking like it would tear out anyone’s throat who came close. Sergeant was unhappy - he would be, but Major Carlton didn’t turn a hair - he knows his officers will keep going come hell or high water - we all will.
Ran into French patrol on right on my way back and came near to getting shot up by them. One of them spoke good English and he told me some of what was going on.
During the day it hadn’t just been us the Germans were after. To the northwest they drove the French 167th into Belleau Wood, and to the west they took Vaux and Hill 204. Chateau-Thierry is now isolated, Vaux not doing any better. Only good news he had was that the German’s hadn’t taken the city, leastways not as far as they knew. I told him our day and they cheered up some; sent them to Major Carlton once I’d found our lines again.
Archer told me the Captain’s dog was called Hell Bitch - can you fathom it?
==========
Bouresches, 3rd June 1918.
The dugout was barely a shack; more a lean-to such as a woodsman might lash together when hunting. Heller stood before its open side, in what passed for a doorway. He didn’t fidget, but it was clear his willpower was sorely tried not to give in to the habit so recently broken by the military. “Sir?”
Morrow knew he looked like hell - looked like a man who’d been four months at Ypres - but that was what deflecting an artillery barrage would do to one. It had been a dumb thing to do - no, not dumb, it had stopped their arrival turning into a slaughteryard and he wasn’t the least bit sorry for it. But burning himself up like that against those shells, that hadn’t been tactically smart. The fight was just beginning. There would be tomorrow to get through, and tomorrow and the tomorrow after that. He ought to pace himself; but pacing was so hard when he knew each time he held back those in his command were torn apart and spat out like a mouthful of beef jerky.
He briefly wondered if Major Carlton had sent the young Lieutenant to check up on him. Still bundled in his greatcoat he sat with a child’s school-board across his knee and a pencil in hand; his head stayed bowed over his reports in the light of the lamp, but his eyes slid to the junior officer. “Lieutenant.”
“You’re not a West Point man, sir?”
An eyebrow rose languidly, still directed at the papers in front of him. “No,” he agreed mildly. “I am not.” Where the hell was this going?
“But you’ve been in service before? I mean, sir, this isn’t the first time you’ve seen action?”
A pause, as if he was considering how best to answer - although why it should require such thought Lieutenant Heller couldn’t fathom. “Not the first time, no.”
“Where was it, sir?” It was an unnecessary question and therefore by its nature impertinent, but he couldn’t help asking; he wanted to know what crucible had forged this man, what hell he’d walked through that he could be so calm and self-assured amidst all of this. In the scant days the Captain had been with them he’d proved to have a sixth-sense when it came to enemy fire: if he wasn’t worried (and he never was) then no one else need be either. The men were fast viewing him as some sort of blessed charm.
One of those strange narrow smiles, private and sardonic. “Was before your time, Lieutenant. Ah, fearless on many a day for us,” he quoted softly. “They stood in front of the fray for us, And held the foeman at bay for us; And tears should fall Fore'er o'er all Who fell while wearing the Gray for us.” He handed over a leaf of paper. “Supplies tally. Take this back through the lines with my compliments. Tell McArthur if he has not requisitioned all I requested then I will personally lace him t’within’ an inch of his sorry life. He wanted us at Lucy le Bocarge and here we are, we’ll take Bois Belleau too, but ain’t gonna happen on empty racks, empty pots and empty promises.” His eyes flicked up to the Lieutenant. “On second thoughts best leave all that out.”
“Sir,” Heller affirmed, humor in his voice at the thought of Morrow dressing down the doughy and bushy-browed Lieutenant Colonel.
“Relay my compliments and my sincerest wish he is a man o’his word.”
As a threat that was somehow worse - and so perfectly phrased as to retain its innocence. Heller was glad that he wasn’t McArthur and therefore did not have the brooding presence of Morrow glowering over him in that composed and gentlemanly way that was more terrifying than ten hollering rough-mouths. Colonels - even Lieutenant Colonels - were not required to take note of Captain’s tallies or opinions. But Heller had a feeling that Morrow was someone whose opinion was hard to escape; something that would either get him promoted or court marshaled in short order. He saluted. “Sir.”
Captain Morrow waved him away, and he fled to his duties.
In the corner of the dugout, comfortable on an old army blanket amidst the shadows, HB whined reproachfully.
Morrow’s smile grew. “I know darlin’. K’al inequed.”
==========
From the diary of First Lieutenant L.R. Long, 3rd Battalion 6th Marines under Major Derby.
4th June 1918.
So far I haven't been able to realize what it all means. And I wish to god I didn’t have an inkling of it now, but I do.
Any whichway I write it here will sound dumb unless you’ve been through the same grind, in which case you’ll know just what I’m talking about. Here goes.
I’ve been numb ever since the end of the first week of our arrival in this sector, which is 38 days ago now. It’s only when Keneally died that I realized I’d been numb. Like maybe when you can only take little breaths because your chest is pinned down by something and it’s only when it’s released again you understand how you were barely breathing at all.
There was a farm, just off the road between Lucy and Bouresches. Fritz had passed through before we got there, the whole place was wrecked. Shame, it looked nice too, like they’d had some money and the land had been good to them. Some of us were scuffing round, most of us had been sent to see if we could scavenge anything - scare up a chicken from somewhere, a peck of grounds, a lump of cheese maybe, refill the canteens. See, if the Boche had just been passing through or left in a hurry there can always be something picked up.
In the main house, amidst all these broken windows and toppled furniture, there was an upright piano, kicked and dusty but in one piece. The call went out to one of the Captains - Morrow - pale skinny fellow, who apparently was known to be able to play.
In he strides and sits down, smiling this crooked smile like he’s the butt of his own joke, fussing with the hang of his coat as he sits and you would have thought he’s about to give a concert to a group of high society swells. He reaches out a hand and starts to play, real slow, like it’s the start of a piece we should all know and when we’ve cottoned on he’ll play it for real. (Elliot said it was a Nocturne.)
Before the last note’s died away he brings up his other hand and is about to really get going when this dog - more like a wolf - ran in and barked at him. He looked at it and I swear he froze, still as the grave. Real slow he took his fingers off the keys and pushed his chair back. He ordered everyone out but me and Keneally. “Keep this place clear,” he said. “Don’t a single fuckin’ one o’you touch that,” and stalked off with the dog.
I didn’t know what bee the Captain had in his bonnet over the piano and I didn’t fucking care. Keneally though, I love the guy but he never can keep his mouth shut or his eye on the ball, y’know? Didn’t take a minute before he was spouting about Morrow - man, there was some jaw about him - how the Fifth think he’s something special, how the wolf dog is his and he calls it ‘Hell Bitch’ and it’s the smartest damn thing you ever saw had four legs...
A minute later he was snapping down all the rumours, cutting this Captain to size. After that he wanted to know why no one else could play the damn piano, and after that he was striding across to bash at the keys.
There’s one like him in every unit. Keneally doesn’t mean to make trouble, I really think he can’t help it - is why I liked him.
Keneally, I got to say, couldn’t sing, can’t play, wouldn’t know a tune if it bit him. He walks over and starts pounding mindlessly on the keys with his knuckles, making a goddamn horrible racket. I shouted something at him from the doorway, trying to get him to quit.
All at once I turn towards him to yell again, there’s a furious shout from outside and as Keneally smashes his fist down again there was an explosion: both piano and he were blown to smithereens and I was knocked flat out the door on my ass. The Germans had booby-trapped one of the keys. I don’t know how that damn dog knew but I’d bet you a bullet it did and that was why the Captain left and ordered everyone out.
Keneally was a bonehead. And he was my best goddamn friend. It was only when I was on my back in the dirt with my ears buzzing with silence, and this smell like hickory smoked bacon or potted ham is in my nose, my back and ass is aching, and a spray of jam’s all over me (who the hell, I thought, thinks it funny to spoon jam on a guy when he’s been bowled over like that?) that I realized of course it isn’t fucking jam. It was Keneally.
And maybe I should have screamed or something but all I could do was look at it and know - really know in a way I’d closed my eyes to before - how many friends and comrades I’d lost.
And how we were all a wrong note away from being fucking ham in a can.
==========
NOTES:
- "Ah, fearless on many a day for us..." taken from the poem CSA by Father Abram Joseph Ryan, poet-priest of the Confederacy.
- "K’al inequed.” Kachina: 'I'm an idiot.'
- A note on jam/jelly: In the early 1900s in America (according to advertising of the time) the word jam was used as well as jelly. It’s only as the century progressed that ‘jelly’ came to stand as a general term for both, so this isn’t me slipping up and using ‘Brit’ words =P
(I like being able to blame people for things.)
It’s been about a month in the writing and has so far resulted in three nightmares, two full-blown hallucinations, countless hours of research, a goodly amount of anguish, the acquisition of a soldier’s coat, a sam brown belt and a rusted bayonet. Which is quite a lot for a story that was only supposed to be a throw away bit of fluff. (And no, it probably wasn't worth it, and likely needs more editing, but never mind.)
As such, darlings - yes, you lot, you bastards - I’d be inordinately grateful if you’d read it and then leave a note to say what you thought.
The story is set in this world during WWI, with the addition of certain individuals who are exceptionally long lived (300 years or so) and have a specific ability and a specific weakness. Their abilities are fuelled by the lifeforce of others. That should be all you need to start you off...
Clockwise from upper left: Preacher Morrow & Cait, Southern cross and gun, HellBitch, Morrow as Marine Captain, Village of Belleau.
Significant music to listen to quietly whilst reading if you so wish:
Click to viewClose to the Madera Canyon, Arizona, September 1917.
The days were golden, caught between summer’s spell and winter’s bite; her favourite time of the year, but her smile had been absent ever since Preach returned, riding Tennyson back from town. She’d known something was up: known from HB’s flattened ears and reluctant paws, known from the shadow in Preach’s eyes and his too bright smile as he kissed her. And now she knew the cause of it.
She tossed the official missive down on the table with indifference but her attention caught in the way Preach’s narrow fingers left his coffee cup to pick it up, as if it was a piece of paper he expected to be doing things with. “You wouldn’t pass the medical,” she stated, callousness striving to mask her unease.
Nonchalant in shirt sleeves and britches, Preacher Morrow’s gaze was for the paper in his hands. “Well now darlin’ that’s the drawback o’havin’ someone badger you into good health. Mean’s a body’s healthy.”
Her jaw had dropped, a thin split of stark surprise. “The devil in y’lungs...”
“Remission,” he said simply. A blank sly look cast in her direction: “Was what you were anglin’ for, ain’t it?”
Had she moved she was sure her feet would trip, legs refuse to hold her up. For not the first time she felt sucker-punched by the universe. “You still got TB!”
A crooked smile. “When was the last time I spat blood or passed out?” A gentler and more jagged smile by far. “When’s the last time you heard me cough, darlin’?”
She calculated, numbly doing the maths.
“Devil’s still there, sure,” he admitted easily, “But ain’t no one gonna find it just by listenin’ without a fancy test.” He looked up at last to meet the turbulent twisting of her features and the horrified glare of her eyes. “Not least I raise the Storm.”
Raising the Storm - the unleashing of his power in a torrent so wild and swift there was a damn good chance it would kill him. No, she wouldn’t ask him to do that, not for such askewed and self-serving purposes. But that didn’t mean she was going to let him go to war on the government’s say so. She wished now - futile and fervent - that she had gone to town instead of him, picked up post and supplies and lost the damn letter in the nearest creek before he’d ever set eyes on it.
He tried to placate her. “Ain’t like they’re pickin’ on me, darlin’. Any man from eighteen t’forty five has t’...”
That sparked her to fury. “You ain’t forty five - you’re fuckin’ well one hundred and sixty seven!”
“Sixty six, but it ain’t what my papers say,” he replied with an equanimity that confounded and incensed her. He rubbed a hand across the neat triangle of his imperial beard. “How exactly am I supposed to alert them t’the error o’their ways?”
What did she care? “Don’t go,” she told him without missing a beat.
He gazed back at her, expression carefully neutral.
“Don’t.” Her voice was strained because she knew his mind was already made up. “It’s hell there.” Her eyes rolled back and her hands hovered over the earth like one gauging the temperature of a stove, heat searing their palms. “Can you hear ‘em?” she demanded hoarsely. “I can. They never stop screamin’...” She shuddered, coming back to herself. “You go, you’ll die,” she prophesied. “They all die.”
“It’s called conscription darlin’,” he said brusquely. “It ain’t known for it’s voluntary aspect.”
“So we can leave,” she told him with an edge of urgency. “Ain’t the first time we lit outta somewhere. We’ll disappear... Arizona’s so full o’sky an’ land ain’t never be they’ll track it all. We could stay at Larabee’s place - patch it up some and...”
“And what sort of man would I be,” Preach interrupted softly, “if I turned tail and left everyone else t’fight?”
“A living one!” she hissed back, her shoulders and spine arching forward just like Spindle’s did when the bobcat was in a snit.
A crooked and empty smile. “Ain’t doin’ this f’glory darlin’ not for morals either. Doin’ it ‘cause it ain’t right f’ a man to walk away from his responsibility. Besides, if this is what has been keepin’ you up all those nights an’ eatin’ away at you, don’t y’think it’s high time I fixed it?” One eyebrow was slightly raised, the beginnings of a sardonic smile at the edges of his mouth.
“I don’t fuckin’ care about sleepin!” she all but screamed at him. “I fuckin’ care about you!” She had that look to her again, wild and desperate and willing to bet anything so long as she won the hand.
Last time she’d been like that there’d been a Mexican stand-off with a box of tacks; he’d won, but only by dint of being a bigger bastard than she. (He had thrice her years and experience after all.) And although thanks to Crowfeather, Cait likely surpassed him these days not only in strength but in experience, he had subtler ways to strike than a tack through the heart.
He let his head tip to the side as he regarded her, heavy as fate, sorrowful as a sigh. “Oh, Cinnamon Cait,” he murmured.
And she knew, just like that time back in Rose Vale Ridge, she’d already lost.
==========
Beaugrenier, France, May 1918.
They were idle, grateful for the rest. “You hear about Sims?” Archer asked.
“Who?”
“Simple - you know, Hal Sims, got those chickens for us back at Marne.”
“Simple! Yeah, yeah.” Pierce grinned around his cigarette. “Those chickens were top. What about him?”
“Caught it two weeks back near Thierry. Goddamn shell hit right next to him. There wasn’t enough of him left t’fill a woollen sock.”
“Fuck me,” he muttered with reflexive reverence.
“Figure I owe the Boche a few for that - was the best quatermaster’s runner in the damn battalion - lousy shot though.”
“Yeah... Did they bury it?” Pierce took another drag on his smoke. “The sock?”
“How’d I know? I guess.”
A pause. “In a full grave?”
“How the fuck do I know?” He scratched at his head, fingers rasping against his short-shorn hair. “Yeah, maybe. Why?”
“Just seems a bit of a waste is all.”
His comrade looked at him in surprise for several seconds before bursting out laughing. “Christ!” he choked.
“What?”
“Stand to for inspection!” came the shout from the Sergeant as he stormed past. “Tighten up you bunch of whoresons - brass coming through.”
They scrambled to their feet. “Who pissed in his coffee?”
“Sarge is sore ‘cos Captain Williams was replaced last night - hand was blown clean off when that barrage came over at ten.”
“Shit,” the other swore, part annoyance, part sympathy.
“Yeah, Sarge...”
But Archer’s comment about the Sergeant’s hatred of breaking in boots and officers at short notice was never made as the man himself returned, as raw-boned and as brick-fisted as ever. “Attention!” he yelled.
Pierce tossed away the last of his cigarette; they snapped straight, as close to model soldiers as they could make it after several months in the field.
Out of the twilight walked their new CO, a pale and wolfish Alsatian trotting close by his boots. Despite the season he wore a winter campaign greatcoat, buttoned neat against the evening. He was older than Captain Williams, past forty, his hair shot with silver, his face a little haggard. His eyes were clear, bright and of the most remarkable cobalt. He was lean, and the narrow breadth of his shoulders leant him both grace and the illusion of greater height. “At ease. I’m Captain Morrow, I’ll be replacing Williams and taking you to Lucy le Bocarge. We march at seven.”
His voice was as Southern as the Rebel Cross, but there was nothing of the hayseed about him, his accent had a clipped aristocratic edge to it and his words rolled like gentle thunder, like the purr of an aging lion. (There was little else leonine about him but, it was agreed, there was much of the storm about him. A dry summer tempest that lit out of nowhere and dropped right on top of you, barely a lick of rain but so much light and spark it was like phosphor burning against your eyelids.)
“I trust you t’know your business, an’ if you don’t, no doubt Sergeant Faulkner will set you right.”
The Sergeant glowered at the men making it clear he’d pistol whip anyone who showed him up poorly to the new brass.
“I require three things of you. I require your respect,” a barely there twitch of a smile, “something I’ll take as a loan f’now until I’ve earnt it. I require your obedience - when I say stay down you stay down, run, you run, because you will have to trust that I can see further than you can and my orders are given with the express purpose of killing the enemy, and keeping all of you alive. And last but in no means least, I require your courage - and I know no man here will disappoint me.” He studied them for a second or so although it was hard to read his thoughts on what he found. “In return, I will offer you three things - my oath on each. I will never ask you to do anything I would not. I will never abandon you. And I will do everything in my power to keep you alive and bring you home.”
Pierce shivered; such a thing should be an idle boast, a stupid sententious lie to get them all on side. But the feeling in those words, the conviction behind them, damnit if that didn’t lance right down his spine.
There was another long moment of silence as he regarded them each in turn, as if seeking to cement his words in their memories. At last he nodded - the slightest dip of the chin to them - a curt ‘carry on’ to the Sergeant and he left, striding back to his dug-out, the ghost-dog loping at his heels.
Archer shook his head and muttered, “Craziest goddamn speech I ever heard.”
==========
From the diary of Private Pierce, 3rd Battalion 5th Marines under Major Carlton.
29th May - 2nd June 1918.
Due to new brass Faulkner was riding us hard, checking everything five times straight; had us stood by to move the moment word was given. Left Beaugrenier at 5:30 and hiked along the Paris-Dieppe Road where we embarked in camions. Wish we’d marched.
All afternoon we met a continuous stream of civilians flocking to the rear in all sorts of conveyances. Many walking and leading dogs, goats, cows, horses, whatever they can take with them. Some wheeling baby carriages loaded with a few choice articles they’d saved. Christ. Such a scene. It’s like this whole country’s on the move. They all had their heads held high though, I’ll give them that.
Rode all day ‘til after midnight - those damn motors rattle like anything, my ass feels black and blue. Halted beside the road. Captain sent word we were only stopping long enough to make a final re-supply before Lucy le Bocarge. To the North and East the sky was red with the light of the burning villages. Guns too far off yet to be heard flashed like fire-flies - real pretty if you didn’t think about it too hard. We flopped beside the road, so damn tired and jolted up (those camions don’t have a fucking spring between them). A Boche plane buzzed by overhead, circling, looking to get lucky. Sergeant Faulkner tried to get us to scramble but Captain Morrow waylayed it - called out something like ‘He’s playin’ pin th’ tail on the fuckin’ donkey, don’t pay ‘im no mind,’ in that crazy drawl of his. Fritz dropped a handful of bombs through the dark at us, but the Captain’s calm was infectious and everyone just lay there, still talking and smoking like they were too tired to take any notice - bombs missed us too.
We were off again in the morning. Stopped briefly on the way where we did our first salvaging. Everyone grabbed themselves a `bon' lot. Disembarked from camion about 4:30 at corner of Lucy and Paris-Metz Road, immediately formed a line in valley between Lucy le Bocarge and Bouresches. A few isolated French units were still among the marines. Next morning when the Germans (held up by night) attacked about 8am, the French got the first of it and there aren’t more of them left than you’d count on fingers and toes. When the first push was done there was nothing but a line of marines to stop the Boche - a pretty thin line at that - but God in heaven, they attacked in mass formation and we mowed them down like hay.
I don’t know how we did it. I shouldn’t write such a thing - but I’ve never seen anything like it - it was almost pitiful.
They came over the top of the ridge and down into the valley and the town of Bouresches in a regular stream ~ long thick lines of slow-moving grey. They had plenty of support from their artillery - bastards must have watched us set up: they’d figured to pound the shit out of our position before their troops had marched in range, then they’d swarm in and finish off our slim pickings. Didn’t happen like that. The artillery never touched us - fuck knows how - wrong coordinates, galeforce headwinds, the wings on an angel, I’ve no fucking idea how those barrages missed. Sound and fury all around us, Sergeant screaming for us to hold steady and I realize no one else is screaming - no choking cries of those who are missing limbs and organs, no shouts of the dying because not a one of us has died. We’d dug in good; the Boche got all the way down to the lee of the hill before they could fire a rifle shot worth a damn... by then they were hard up against our Lewis guns which cut them to ribbons. Like Archer said, it was a fucking harvest.
We were tired but in good spirits, Sergeant Faulkner kept it tight though.
Was made section runner - no rest for the wicked. Went out on run at night but section had moved forward and to the left so went wandering until I found them. There were no signs of trenches of any sort; went strolling out into No Mans Land before I finally located them. Sergeant would pitch a fit but he was already having one over the Captain. Morrow was coughing like he’d been gassed and that dog of his was growling and wouldn’t budge an inch from his side, looking like it would tear out anyone’s throat who came close. Sergeant was unhappy - he would be, but Major Carlton didn’t turn a hair - he knows his officers will keep going come hell or high water - we all will.
Ran into French patrol on right on my way back and came near to getting shot up by them. One of them spoke good English and he told me some of what was going on.
During the day it hadn’t just been us the Germans were after. To the northwest they drove the French 167th into Belleau Wood, and to the west they took Vaux and Hill 204. Chateau-Thierry is now isolated, Vaux not doing any better. Only good news he had was that the German’s hadn’t taken the city, leastways not as far as they knew. I told him our day and they cheered up some; sent them to Major Carlton once I’d found our lines again.
Archer told me the Captain’s dog was called Hell Bitch - can you fathom it?
==========
Bouresches, 3rd June 1918.
The dugout was barely a shack; more a lean-to such as a woodsman might lash together when hunting. Heller stood before its open side, in what passed for a doorway. He didn’t fidget, but it was clear his willpower was sorely tried not to give in to the habit so recently broken by the military. “Sir?”
Morrow knew he looked like hell - looked like a man who’d been four months at Ypres - but that was what deflecting an artillery barrage would do to one. It had been a dumb thing to do - no, not dumb, it had stopped their arrival turning into a slaughteryard and he wasn’t the least bit sorry for it. But burning himself up like that against those shells, that hadn’t been tactically smart. The fight was just beginning. There would be tomorrow to get through, and tomorrow and the tomorrow after that. He ought to pace himself; but pacing was so hard when he knew each time he held back those in his command were torn apart and spat out like a mouthful of beef jerky.
He briefly wondered if Major Carlton had sent the young Lieutenant to check up on him. Still bundled in his greatcoat he sat with a child’s school-board across his knee and a pencil in hand; his head stayed bowed over his reports in the light of the lamp, but his eyes slid to the junior officer. “Lieutenant.”
“You’re not a West Point man, sir?”
An eyebrow rose languidly, still directed at the papers in front of him. “No,” he agreed mildly. “I am not.” Where the hell was this going?
“But you’ve been in service before? I mean, sir, this isn’t the first time you’ve seen action?”
A pause, as if he was considering how best to answer - although why it should require such thought Lieutenant Heller couldn’t fathom. “Not the first time, no.”
“Where was it, sir?” It was an unnecessary question and therefore by its nature impertinent, but he couldn’t help asking; he wanted to know what crucible had forged this man, what hell he’d walked through that he could be so calm and self-assured amidst all of this. In the scant days the Captain had been with them he’d proved to have a sixth-sense when it came to enemy fire: if he wasn’t worried (and he never was) then no one else need be either. The men were fast viewing him as some sort of blessed charm.
One of those strange narrow smiles, private and sardonic. “Was before your time, Lieutenant. Ah, fearless on many a day for us,” he quoted softly. “They stood in front of the fray for us, And held the foeman at bay for us; And tears should fall Fore'er o'er all Who fell while wearing the Gray for us.” He handed over a leaf of paper. “Supplies tally. Take this back through the lines with my compliments. Tell McArthur if he has not requisitioned all I requested then I will personally lace him t’within’ an inch of his sorry life. He wanted us at Lucy le Bocarge and here we are, we’ll take Bois Belleau too, but ain’t gonna happen on empty racks, empty pots and empty promises.” His eyes flicked up to the Lieutenant. “On second thoughts best leave all that out.”
“Sir,” Heller affirmed, humor in his voice at the thought of Morrow dressing down the doughy and bushy-browed Lieutenant Colonel.
“Relay my compliments and my sincerest wish he is a man o’his word.”
As a threat that was somehow worse - and so perfectly phrased as to retain its innocence. Heller was glad that he wasn’t McArthur and therefore did not have the brooding presence of Morrow glowering over him in that composed and gentlemanly way that was more terrifying than ten hollering rough-mouths. Colonels - even Lieutenant Colonels - were not required to take note of Captain’s tallies or opinions. But Heller had a feeling that Morrow was someone whose opinion was hard to escape; something that would either get him promoted or court marshaled in short order. He saluted. “Sir.”
Captain Morrow waved him away, and he fled to his duties.
In the corner of the dugout, comfortable on an old army blanket amidst the shadows, HB whined reproachfully.
Morrow’s smile grew. “I know darlin’. K’al inequed.”
==========
From the diary of First Lieutenant L.R. Long, 3rd Battalion 6th Marines under Major Derby.
4th June 1918.
So far I haven't been able to realize what it all means. And I wish to god I didn’t have an inkling of it now, but I do.
Any whichway I write it here will sound dumb unless you’ve been through the same grind, in which case you’ll know just what I’m talking about. Here goes.
I’ve been numb ever since the end of the first week of our arrival in this sector, which is 38 days ago now. It’s only when Keneally died that I realized I’d been numb. Like maybe when you can only take little breaths because your chest is pinned down by something and it’s only when it’s released again you understand how you were barely breathing at all.
There was a farm, just off the road between Lucy and Bouresches. Fritz had passed through before we got there, the whole place was wrecked. Shame, it looked nice too, like they’d had some money and the land had been good to them. Some of us were scuffing round, most of us had been sent to see if we could scavenge anything - scare up a chicken from somewhere, a peck of grounds, a lump of cheese maybe, refill the canteens. See, if the Boche had just been passing through or left in a hurry there can always be something picked up.
In the main house, amidst all these broken windows and toppled furniture, there was an upright piano, kicked and dusty but in one piece. The call went out to one of the Captains - Morrow - pale skinny fellow, who apparently was known to be able to play.
In he strides and sits down, smiling this crooked smile like he’s the butt of his own joke, fussing with the hang of his coat as he sits and you would have thought he’s about to give a concert to a group of high society swells. He reaches out a hand and starts to play, real slow, like it’s the start of a piece we should all know and when we’ve cottoned on he’ll play it for real. (Elliot said it was a Nocturne.)
Before the last note’s died away he brings up his other hand and is about to really get going when this dog - more like a wolf - ran in and barked at him. He looked at it and I swear he froze, still as the grave. Real slow he took his fingers off the keys and pushed his chair back. He ordered everyone out but me and Keneally. “Keep this place clear,” he said. “Don’t a single fuckin’ one o’you touch that,” and stalked off with the dog.
I didn’t know what bee the Captain had in his bonnet over the piano and I didn’t fucking care. Keneally though, I love the guy but he never can keep his mouth shut or his eye on the ball, y’know? Didn’t take a minute before he was spouting about Morrow - man, there was some jaw about him - how the Fifth think he’s something special, how the wolf dog is his and he calls it ‘Hell Bitch’ and it’s the smartest damn thing you ever saw had four legs...
A minute later he was snapping down all the rumours, cutting this Captain to size. After that he wanted to know why no one else could play the damn piano, and after that he was striding across to bash at the keys.
There’s one like him in every unit. Keneally doesn’t mean to make trouble, I really think he can’t help it - is why I liked him.
Keneally, I got to say, couldn’t sing, can’t play, wouldn’t know a tune if it bit him. He walks over and starts pounding mindlessly on the keys with his knuckles, making a goddamn horrible racket. I shouted something at him from the doorway, trying to get him to quit.
All at once I turn towards him to yell again, there’s a furious shout from outside and as Keneally smashes his fist down again there was an explosion: both piano and he were blown to smithereens and I was knocked flat out the door on my ass. The Germans had booby-trapped one of the keys. I don’t know how that damn dog knew but I’d bet you a bullet it did and that was why the Captain left and ordered everyone out.
Keneally was a bonehead. And he was my best goddamn friend. It was only when I was on my back in the dirt with my ears buzzing with silence, and this smell like hickory smoked bacon or potted ham is in my nose, my back and ass is aching, and a spray of jam’s all over me (who the hell, I thought, thinks it funny to spoon jam on a guy when he’s been bowled over like that?) that I realized of course it isn’t fucking jam. It was Keneally.
And maybe I should have screamed or something but all I could do was look at it and know - really know in a way I’d closed my eyes to before - how many friends and comrades I’d lost.
And how we were all a wrong note away from being fucking ham in a can.
==========
NOTES:
- "Ah, fearless on many a day for us..." taken from the poem CSA by Father Abram Joseph Ryan, poet-priest of the Confederacy.
- "K’al inequed.” Kachina: 'I'm an idiot.'
- A note on jam/jelly: In the early 1900s in America (according to advertising of the time) the word jam was used as well as jelly. It’s only as the century progressed that ‘jelly’ came to stand as a general term for both, so this isn’t me slipping up and using ‘Brit’ words =P