Malaria, dysentery, shrapnel wound, gunshot wound God, the possibilities were endless. That fucked me over, too, just thinking about all that. Sent you hurtling down into hellish dreams that kept you from good sleep, which was hard to come by anyway.
But I had an escape. I took advantage of it when things got the roughest out there, when I began to feel as if I may go insane myself, just like all the others who shot themselves on purpose just to get the hell out of that place. I didn t lower myself to that because I wasn t a coward, but I could get away from it, if only for a little while.
It was easier to do it back at base camp when you knew you weren t in grave danger, when the likelihood of becoming another casualty of war was less than it was out in the field. Made you feel relatively safe and secure. A bomb could still land on top of you, sure, but it seemed silly to think about. Until one day it happened, a bomb went down right infront of me and blew into a thosuand pieces and nearly killed me.
OTHER POINT OF VIEW
Just after darkness though, the day changed. A call came through the door- Any nurses? It was sounding pretty frantic,
I hated it when that happened- I mean when I was free when a call came. I didn t want to be one of the first people to see the damaged bodies some of which were either dead or dying by the time they got to us. It wasn t a pretty sight to see, but I usually was one of the free nurses at the time a call came. I guess life s silly that way.
When I stepped out though, I saw it was worse than what I had thought. There were dozens of men there- no, boys, they couldn t be much older than 18. It must have been an attack! And they all looked pretty badly wounded. I didn t know which was worse, looking at them all or the shouting that was going on.
Ambushed just up the road-
Didn t even see them coming-
Got a few dead back there, going to have to look after-
You! one of the doctors said to me. You and Halliger here sort them out, in priority! Mark them!
I looked beside me, and Halliger was looking as appalled as I felt. Of course, we didn t hate our jobs, but me and her were friends and we both hated the look of blood. Don t ask why we were nurses, but there was something out here that called to me. Maybe looking after people, since I never had been good at it before.
You take the left? she said to me, and I nodded before moving off. It was like this all the time; sorting people- who was going to die, who needed emergency attention, and who could wait until everyone else was looked after?
I knelt down to see what was wrong with the first guy I got to on my side- I saw anything wrong with him except a deep cut on his face and that he was apparently bleeding somewhere because he was drenched in blood. When I did though, I felt my heart drop to my stomach, because there, in front of me, was Sodapop Curtis, heartthrob of Tulsa.