Edelweiss
Rating: T+
Genre: Historical Fiction / Drama
Disclaimer: This story is historical fictional, and based solely on the series Band of Brothers and the actors who portrayed the men of Easy Company. Any and all recognizable characters mentioned are owned by HBO, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, etc. and thus do not belong to me. I mean no disrespect whatsoever to the real veterans of Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne, or the nurses, medics, and doctors of the 42d Field Hospital.
Summary: War knows no bounds. It's like dandelion seeds swirling in a gust of wind, flickering towards lands across the globe. It sprouts fear, hate, destruction. It sprouts courage, loyalty, honor. But only in its darkest hour, and in its finest hour, it blossoms hope. And perhaps even love.
A/N: I always tend to hesitate before posting stories, but after fifteen chapters with this one, I realized I invested quite a bit into this story haha. To be honest, I've had this story idea floating in my head for the past five years or so, ever since I first watched Band of Brothers. I watched it again during the summer and Edelweiss was gradually pieced together. It's... different from most, I think. It's different from what I usually write about and how I write it, so it was a bit of a fun challenge for me. The major historical events that are mentioned in the story are relatively accurate, though there are some tweaks and details changed to comply with the story. Anyways, my rambles are all said and done. I hope you guys enjoy the story!
Prologue
It should've been us.
She clenched and unclenched her hands. Blood that dried in the cold winter air covered her fingertips and palms and sleeves in its crimson mess. Whether it belonged to the soldier who had the gaping hole in the side of his neck, or the soldier with the obliterated forearm, or the soldier with the shrapnel-ridden chest, or any of the numerous others—she didn't know. It was the same sticking blood that stained her hands, leaving a sickeningly familiar warmth that should have faded long ago.
The smell of gunpowder and smoke and sulfur permeated the chilling air. It was hours after the bombardment, a whole night. But it felt like ages of flustered shouts, earth-shattering booms, and wounded men. Her ODs were either torn or singed, her dented helmet rested atop the dark locks haphazardly tossed into a knotted bun, her pale face covered with dirt and sweat and blood. She was a mess. A walking mess of a woman in the Army Nurse Corps.
It should've been us.
Her clenched hands were stuffed into the deep pockets of her green field jacket. She was beginning to grow sick of seeing those tarnished hands. But a part of her grew afraid. Tolerance made her get this far. It kept her mind intact, her emotions clear, and her intentions true. Yet she grew close to letting all that diminish after one night.
She couldn't let that happen now. Not after all this time. At the mere thought of it all, her throat tightened and her stomach coiled. It couldn't happen. Not now.
Quiet chatter and dull footsteps surrounded her. Men of another battalion, one not of her own, were tending to the wounded. Other soldiers caught in the town's bombardment, those from the Ardennes Forest's shelling. Men that were relatively fit and healthy, given their company's circumstances, now laid on make-shift cots and blankets along the cobblestone streets. It was a shame. Civilians of Bastogne and other displaced villagers were caught up in the German's recent assault as well, and she felt that shame burn through conscience. They didn't deserve this tragedy. They were all innocent.
Her dark mahogany eyes drifted around the stone courtyard and she felt her heart wrench.
They were all innocent…
She watched as the raven-haired medic splinted the leg of another soldier's. His expression was eerily calm, almost vacant. Even as he offered words of some type of comfort, even mustering up some type of a little smile, she could still sense the hollowness in those gestures. They stood no more than yards away, and her eyes were beginning to grow heavy and strained, but she could still make this out. That only seemed to have made the tug in her chest that much more difficult to bear.
Soon he stood up from his crouched position, wiping his hands on a grey piece of cloth he had found. His head turned to the other direction, towards the desolate church that once stood so proudly. And as he stood there, she couldn't help but wonder what was going through his mind. He turned around once more, glancing around the cobblestone streets and stone courtyard. But she soon found herself turning her head to look away when his dark gaze met hers.
Her hands dug deeper into her jacket, trying to kindle some type of warmth against the cold that entangled her limbs. Yet as she did this, she felt something soft and damp brush against her knuckles.
As she pulled out her left hand, her vision blurred slightly. The small white flower, delicate and vulnerable with petals of light felt forming a pale star, now rested between her fingertips. Its stem and petals tinged faintly with brown decay, but it made no difference.
Bryant. Schmidtz. Napier. Her breath steamed in the winter air. Weisburg. Borgne. Camacho.
She bit her lower lip and tucked her chin to her chest. Her fingers tingled with numbness, as did her mind. The names were coming to her memory slowly. The faces that went their names came even slower.
Lee. Salas. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Langley. Wilkerson. Isaac. Renée.
Numbness coursed through her mind as the back of her head rested against the cold stone wall behind her. For the first time in a long while, she was mentally and physically exhausted. After recalling those names she had etched into her memory, emotional exhaustion was not too far behind. She missed some, she knew. But she couldn't bring herself to say them all.
"Nurse! For Christ's sake, someone!"
She opened her eyes and found an anxious soldier hopping out of a jeep. Two men laid on the back hatch, their uniforms blackened with a blast's debris and caked with blood. On the front end was another, unconscious as he laid there with a burnt stub that was once his left forearm.
"Winnie, get those strips of cloth out from the front of the ambulance. We'll get the men in the back." A plump red-headed woman nodded instantly. Another woman, shorter in stature with chestnut hair pinned behind her head, gathered her cloth satchel and shouted over her shoulder. "C'mon Angel, we've got men to save."
Angel.
No matter how many times she's heard someone call her that, a part of her always hated that name.
Slowly she rose to her feet, wincing at the tired muscles in her arms and legs. Exhaustion reached its peak as soon as her body began to move. She swayed slightly, but quickly reached for the wall behind her and steadied herself. The tiny flower still rested between her fingers, still as soft and delicate as it always was. A smear of blood had now blemished one of its light felts, but it made it no less of the flower that it was.
Across the way, the raven-haired medic watched her intently. His dark brown eyes fixated on her, scrutinizing and weary. She could feel it.
With one last glance, she placed the flower into the button slit on the front of her field jacket. Suppressed groans and whimpers of agony hung in the air. Burnt wool and sulfur wafted through her nostrils. Blood still caked onto the palms of her hands and fingers. She reached for her canteen and took a quick gulp before pouring the rest onto her stained hands, rubbing the sticky mess off as best she could.
As she walked towards the first jeep, her mind cleared and her previous dread had dissipated. Exhaustion was no longer something she could be concerned with. Subconsciously, she touched the flower on the slit of her jacket.
Her instincts took her to the man the medics had lowered onto a make-shift cot. His face was red and swollen as he tried to make his pain intelligible. He couldn't be any older than eighteen years old.
"Fucking shit," he gurgled between breaths and gasps. "Fucking krauts! Oh God…"
His right leg was mangled with varying bits of shrapnel and his uniform had been singed and blackened. Deep gashes and lacerations could be made out from under the blood-soaked bandages around his neck. Her stomach clenched. But she braved the torrents of hesitations and reached for the last clean bandage in her satchel.
"Oh God… I—I'm gonna die," he whimpered. "Nurse… I—I don't…"
"Shh… It's gonna be alright," she soothed softly. The whimpers continued as she glimpsed at his leg. Pale hands tarnished with grime and faded blood secured the undone cloth around the soldier's thigh. Mahogany orbs clashed with ebony pools in an instant and she felt her throat tighten.
"We got ya, Corporal," the Cajun lilt in his voice was unmistakable. He tore through the soldier's ragged pants and picked out the larger pieces of shrapnel, working silently despite the sharp cries that now pierced the air.
She turned her head and gathered up a small smile as she applied pressure to the bandage across the soldier's neck. Where moments ago the cloth was fresh and clean, it was now soaked with crimson pools. His gasps were getting less and less comprehensible. Panic and pain quickly took hold of his breath.
"Hey. No, look at me. Look at me, soldier," she held his chin in place to leave him no choice. His left eye was swollen shut, but his right flicked to meet her gaze. It was a light green color, sheened with a thin layer of translucent tears. But still, she smiled. "What's your name? Your name, soldier?"
"B… Ben," he said between breaths. "B… St—Stover."
"Alright then, Ben," she said quietly. Blood began to trickle down her fingers, but her expression remained calm, gentle. "My name's Emeline. You gotta stay with me, you hear? Keep your eyes on me. That's right. You gotta relax your legs. We're gonna patch you up, Ben. Everything's gonna be alright."
Her gaze lifted once more and she found the raven-haired medic glancing at her from the corner of his eye. Shrapnel fragments were still embedded into Stover's leg, now smaller and impossible to reach without surgery. The medic cursed silently but tried to clean it as best he could.
From that moment on, the nurse worked intently. Her fingers nimble and her actions swift as she sewed the gaping slits on the soldier's neck, as she applied the syrette of morphine to his other thigh, as she and the medic quickly dug through his leg for the metal fragments with nothing more than a knife and forceps.
Every action and movement proved efficient and immediate, but her mind had wandered elsewhere. Far from the battles of Bastogne, far from the reaches of this war. Before the 42d Field Hospital reached the shores of Normandy, before she became a registered nurse under California law. She remembered days walking through her town, one nestled beside the sandy shores and the expansive blues of oceans and skies.
She remembered chatting with Kathy and Georgia as they walked down the main street to the theaters; remembered riding her bike to their houses down the street from hers. They'd spend the whole day talking about how they hated Mr. Edlestein's Algebra class, and how they loved how Bradley Lenoire winked at them when they walked down their middle school halls. She remembered that tall English oak tree at the end of her street; the one that towered over her like an earth-borne giant, and casted fractured shadows across her skin when she sat under its shade during the hot summers. She remembered sitting on those sandy shores of the beach until sundown, enjoying nothing but her own thoughts and the gentle sway of ocean blues.
Better days. Those were better days.
We are now in this war. We are all in it — all the way. Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories — the changing fortunes of war.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt – December 9, 1941
Edited: February 14, 2013