Desert Sands and Memories
Disclaimer/Author's Note: I do not own the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego or Rupert franchises and the character Andi Ryvers was created by Carmine in a great fic called Everywhere. The character Martin Gallatin is my creation.
The sound of shelling is muted, but still audible, for we are approximately six kilometers from the front line. The line to the cookhouse would be long by any standards, but not to ours. Of the 150 men that marched off fifteen days earlier, eighty remain. We were lucky at first, aside from the occasional casualty from a raid or the occasional KIA from a probing attack, the front was quiet. Then two nights ago a massive barrage from enemy lines landed in our sector, costing us many dead and wounded. Of the one hundred fifty men, seventy men of Baker Company, 15th Light Infantry Division, Army Corps Africa, are either dead or languishing in hospitals to the rear because of the barrage.
The desert sun is kept out by the shade of the tarps around the kitchen, but not the heat or a good portion of the blowing sand. Still, good hot food originally intended for 150 soldiers, is now going to eighty men. The mess sergeant was initially adamant saying, "This food is for the whole of Baker Company, I cannot give almost double rations to eighty soldiers."
"We are Baker Company." Corporal Kaczynski "Kat" Stanislaus, a hefty fellow from Geneva, Switzerland, and a good friend of mine replies. He is a mustached fellow of about twenty-five and what we in the army call a career corporal, a man who is comfortable with his station and does not nor will not put on that third chevron.
Sergeant Krassau is adamant at first, then reluctantly he puts an extra helping of a hearty beef stew, potatoes and a large ration loaf on Stanislaus' mess tin. I grin to myself as my own ample helping is heaped into my mess tin. Kat joins me as we fill our cups with strong, steaming coffee and sit down at one of the large picnic tables.
"These certainly are fine pickings after fifteen days of field rations." Kat remarks.
James Fressan, a wiry curly haired youth of eighteen, Jay Wiersbowski a stocky little fellow from New York, and "Pilgrim" a slender fellow with black, oily hair and a pragmatist's air about him. These three enlisted with me a year earlier from the same ACME field office in San Francisco. Altogether there are about twenty ACME detectives I know personally that are serving with me during this war.
"Indeed." I reply, placing my sand brown forage cap on my belt, "Not nearly as good as the time you scrounged up those five lobsters in Salerno, very fine dining before going to El Agheila."
"That was over six months ago." Fressan remarks.
"I swear they're trying to make me puke with this stuff." Wiersbowski replies.
"Maybe Pilgrim can use the radio shed to hatch chickens in, yeah." Fressan remarks.
"Ducks in the latrines, why not? Sweet little ducklings. We can fatten them up with jam from your filthy feet." Pilgrim jokes back.
"You dirty pig." Wiersbowski snaps back.
"Why, what's wrong. In the morning they'd feed on Fressan's toe jam."
Grim soldier's humor, keeps one operating under the difficult conditions that fighting in the conditions the desert imposes upon us. There are three secrets to good morale for a soldier, good food, adequate sleep and the sweetest thing one can ever hear.
"Mail call!" a darkly tanned corporal calls out as the supply truck pulls up to the field kitchen near where our barracks are set.
"Shapiro." He calls out.
"Garland."
Sergeant McCron, second platoon, fifth squad's squad leader replies, "He's in the hospital."
"Bronsky?"
"Here." Corporal Bronsky, another friend and definitely almost as easy going as a career corporal can go.
"Gallatin."
At the sound of my name, I stand up and receive a couple of letters. Doubled rations, a cup of coffee that isn't watery and made with recycled grounds, and now a letter home all equal a splendid day in my book. Coupled of course with the fact that I am alive, and can now enjoy my first decent shower in days is that one of the two letters is one I've waited for quite some time. This goes without saying any mail is better than no mail at all.
"From Andi?" Kat says, looking over my shoulder. I shoot him a sideway glance that says I want a little privacy.
"I don't need to read the return address to find out who wrote you. I can tell by the way you perk up when you hear your name at roll call, and when she's the author you start beaming like a beacon." Kat grins, putting walking me back to the table.
"Aren't you gonna read it?" Wiersbowski asks.
"Not yet. Let me finish this food first." I reply.
"I think what our British friend; Gallatin is saying is he'd rather have a little privacy to read it." Bronsky jokes, blowing smoke from a cigarette. He is a little smaller than Kat, taller, but with that same languid and easy going demeanor that characterizes the Swiss career corporal.
"She better not be talking about those hamsters, it makes me hungry just thinking about it." Pilgrim replies. We all have grown used to this, ever since the time Pilgrim was trapped behind an enemy counterattack and had to survive by killing and eating mice for three days before we could attack with reinforcements from the 27th Armored Division. Somehow he's developed a taste for rodents.
"Pilgrim, I doubt Andi would appreciate you going into her house and making a meal of her hamsters." I reply.
"Disappointed Pilgrim?" Fressan laughs as he walks up to use the latrine, but instead, tripping and falling over a gas mask that someone left on the ground.
"About the only time we use those are whenever Fressan farts in an enclosed space." Pilgrim cracks.
"Ha ha ha ha." Fressan replies sarcastically and dusts himself off.
I place my forage cap atop me head, gather my gear and rifle, and walk off to the barracks, another large tent, really with several cots inside. But in the center are the satellite phones which we are permitted to use. Kat follows after me.
"Gonna call Andi?" he asks.
I nod in reply. Kat is as genuine a friend as one can ask for, all the others I consider my friends as well, but Kat is that good combination of big brother, NCO, friend, and mentor. "She must be very special to you my friend." Kat continues.
The other piece of mail I receive is a quick postcard from Zack and Ivy, a picture of the Swiss Alps, "It should be snowing any day now back home." Kat muses.
"It's almost Andi's favorite season, she loves winter. I'm the exact opposite." I reply.
"And is she in Switzerland." Kat asks.
"No, she's back home in Boston. But a couple of my old colleagues from ACME are there." I reply.
"Curious, an ACME braintrust in the army, what a combination." Kat remarks, if he thinks ACME detectives are all brains and no muscle he hasn't run into Ivy.
"Hey Wiersbowski, Pilgrim, and Fressan are ACME detectives." I protest.
"Nothing against ACME sleuths, but I never imagined independent and smart thinkers as making good soldiers." Kat replies as we walk into the barracks.
Still carrying my rucksack, rifle, and gear I walk to the satellite phone, punch in a number I know by heart and await. Three rings later brings me an answer, "Hi Miss Ryvers, is Andi home?" I ask, Kat's grin says 'you sound like a sophomore at his first high school dance' as I wait.
"Andrea! Come here, it's Martin." I hear over the phone.
"Coming mom!" I hear in reply.
"Martin? How are you?" I hear.
I can't help but smile, despite being weary from having humped six kilometers back from the trenches and being weighed down by my rifle and gear which I haven't put down yet. "I'm just fine Andi." I reply, saying the first thing that comes to mind, "God it's great to hear your voice again."
As I speak to her, I am instantly transferred back to a fantasy world of memories that do not entail trench digging, advancing without pause, or facing swarms of the living dead across the no man's land. In my mind's eye I can see Andi on the other side of the line. I can see her slender frame resting against a table, her petite build, the warmth in those gray eyes and the light reflecting off her chestnut brown hair.
"How's Rhett Garland's doing." Andi says. Rhett Garland, whom two days ago was wounded in action manning his 3.7 cm anti-tank gun, he was an old friend of Andi and Ivy that the latter went through ACME training with.
"He's wounded." I say, being caught flatfooted, "But not badly, he's in the hospital to the rear. He should be just fine."
My last sentence was a flat out lie if I ever told one. The second one I'm not to sure about. "In fact I'll go over and see if he's alright." I continue on.
After I hang up the phone I say, "Kat, I'm going to the field hospital to check on Garland."
"Good," says another voice, Pilgrim, "I'm going with you."
Both of us gather up our packs, place our helmets on our web gear, don our forage caps and sling our rifles. We walk about half a kilometer when a sympathetic truck driver offers us a ride to the hospital.
We find Rhett Garland at a hospital bed, and he is not in good shape. His face is ashen and his eyes have withdrawn into his head. A noticeable stump can be seen, as one leg has been amputated at the knee. "Have either of you fellas found my watch?" he asks weakly, his Texas twang still present. When he was unconscious, someone light fingered his watch.
"No Rhett, we haven't." I reply.
"Remember I told you no man should carry as good a watch as that." Pilgrim says as I elbow him in the rib cage. Pilgrim is a little insincere, and speaks his mind a little too much. What is the point of arguing over a watch anyway, at any point it is highly unlikely Garland is going to leave this place alive. Pilgrim stalks off outside the hospital to go smoke a cigarette as I stand vigil beside Garland's bed.
He is feverish, sweating, and shivering, "You must eat to regain your strength."
"I wanted to be head forester when I got out. But I won't be able to do that now. What's the use?" he says.
"They have splendid artificial limbs now, they'll attach one to you as soon as you're better." I reply, the atmosphere, a mixture of pus, sweat, carbolic, and gangrene is making me ill.
A group of doctors is milling amongst the beds, selecting those most fit for travel to be sent to hospitals in Sicily and Italy, they pass Rhett's bed without even looking down. "Don't worry, maybe next time." I reply.
"You'll write my mamma if I don't make it back, right?" Rhett asks. The look in his eyes is that of a man who has given up. His poor mother is going to be devastated if he dies.
His mother was a rotund, brunette woman with graying streaks in her hair. She had the least composure of all the mothers at No. 4 Barracks, Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where we finished advanced infantry training and where a chosen number of us had been chosen to be one of "The Africans", soldiers sent to Army Corps Africa, instead of being shipped of to the hellish house to house fighting that Dyson City, located on a relatively new island on the North Atlantic, was being fought. When she learned Rhett was in my unit she said, "Please tell me you'll look after Rhett."
I replied that I would, but how can a man look after another in a combat zone, it simply cannot be done. Rhett had been part of a four man crew manning a 3.7 cm anti-tank gun, driving off a massive assault by enemy arachnids when a Gollum sniper shot him in the knee. The quarrel that buried itself deep into flesh, muscle and bone had fragmented into several pieces that made individual removal almost impossible.
"Now, now, don't talk like that." I say calmly, "It's only because of the amputation that you feel this way. Get plenty to eat and plenty of rest and you'll be fine."
Even as I say this, I can see this won't be so. The ashen tone of Rhett's skin shows that death is claiming him from inside out. His breathing begins to become more labored, "Gallatin, please write my mamma, tell her I died like a man."
These are the man's last words before he fades. "Orderly!" I shout into the hospital, "Bed 2126, Amputated knee!" I shout as I see Rhett Garland fading away quickly.
The world ought to come up to him and say "This is Rhett Garland, nineteen and a half years old, he shouldn't have to die!"
Even as I call for the orderly, I can see it is too late. "There are at least five amputated knees in this hospital." A balding, overworked and stressed hospital orderly replies, as he walks up to me and checks Rhett's bed.
"He's gone." The man replies, summoning two stretcher bearers with a body bag. I remove one of Garland's dog tags, stuffing it in my pocket, and collect his few belongings. I walk out of the hospital, not wishing to stay in the stifling atmosphere within as well as not looking at a dying man once known as PFC Rhett Garland, United Systems Army.
Pilgrim hitches us a ride on another truck and as we ride back to our billet I say nothing. The bouncing of the vehicle and my already exhausted mind lull me to sleep and I lean against a supply crate full of hand grenades and sleep.
Sleep for me brings me into a lot of things, sometimes it brings me nightmares of the frontlines, or of that vicious raid at El Agheila we repulsed, other times it brings to mind a pleasant fantasy world that takes me far and away from the sand and heat of the desert war.
It brings me to a pleasant pre-war world this time around. I'm sitting at coffee shop of a book store in Boston, where I decide to spend some vacation time after a case. I am dividing my time between Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and looking around for my date. It's a blind date, one that Ivy set me up for a week ago when she heard I was spending two weeks in Boston after cracking a VILE art theft scheme there. I have no bloody idea as to who I'm meeting, I only know to be sitting at a particular table closest to the fiction section.
About a half hour passes, by my watch, 8:30 PM, that's when she's supposed to show up. I see her then, a slender, petite frame, standing about an inch or so shorter than me. I see a pair of gray eyes scanning the tables, looking for my table. Her shoulder length brown hair piles nicely over that purple turtleneck she's wearing. She is obviously comfortable with the fall weather where I'm already wearing a leather jacket over a long sleeved collared shirt.
"Is this seat taken?" she asks.
"No, it isn't." I reply, putting my book away.
"You're English?" she asks.
"I'm from a small country town called Nutwood Forest." I reply, hoping the name of my little town doesn't sound too ridiculous.
She grins at me, "You must be my date then."
"Do you know anyone named Ivy Darren?" I ask.
"She's the one who told me you'd be here." Andi replies, then noticing my book she asks, "You ever read any more of Verne?"
"I just got into his work." I reply, always happy to have another reader to talk to, "Perhaps you'd like to talk about it over a cup of coffee. My treat."
And so this whole two year relationship began over a cup of coffee and a novel. About then I awaken, blinking sleep from my eyes and finding myself out by our billet as Pilgrim shakes me awake. We say our thanks to the truck driver and set down our packs, rifles, and web gear next to our cots.
I strip off my uniform blouse, seeing two gray bugs crawl out from it. Lice from the front lines, I have in mind an idea to visit the delousing station in a moment. Pilgrim and I divide Garland's clothing between us. I get two faded sand brown uniform blouses and a belt, where Pilgrim gets two sets of trousers. We divide the socks and undershirts between us, waste not want not is the name of the game in this theater of operation. Kat goes in and distributes other gear items to the rest of us. Wiersbowski comes away with Rhett's canteen, Fressan gets an extra forage cap, Bronsky comes away with a Bowie knife, and Kat a sharpened spade. I take the spare blanket at the bottom of the pack.
As I look around the barracks, I notice we all resemble miners and coal diggers rather than soldiers. I walk to the nearest shower, and watch as the water rinses the filth from my skin. Toweling off, I throw on my undershirt and trousers and walk off to my cot. With the blousing of our trousers, and the great drainpipes of our boots we resemble hulking giants in uniform. Stripping it away, wearing only shorts and undershirts, as we mostly spend our time wearing in the barracks behind the lines, we resemble civilians again, our narrow boyish frames would cause the casual observer to wonder how we ever manage to carry our packs.
I lie in my cot, throwing my greatcoat and two spare blankets over myself and get ready to sleep. As I do so, I prepare to dream of my old life at ACME and Nutwood Forest. As well as Andi, who's picture I keep in my helmet at all times.
Disclaimer/Author's Note: I do not own the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego or Rupert franchises and the character Andi Ryvers was created by Carmine in a great fic called Everywhere. The character Martin Gallatin is my creation.
The sound of shelling is muted, but still audible, for we are approximately six kilometers from the front line. The line to the cookhouse would be long by any standards, but not to ours. Of the 150 men that marched off fifteen days earlier, eighty remain. We were lucky at first, aside from the occasional casualty from a raid or the occasional KIA from a probing attack, the front was quiet. Then two nights ago a massive barrage from enemy lines landed in our sector, costing us many dead and wounded. Of the one hundred fifty men, seventy men of Baker Company, 15th Light Infantry Division, Army Corps Africa, are either dead or languishing in hospitals to the rear because of the barrage.
The desert sun is kept out by the shade of the tarps around the kitchen, but not the heat or a good portion of the blowing sand. Still, good hot food originally intended for 150 soldiers, is now going to eighty men. The mess sergeant was initially adamant saying, "This food is for the whole of Baker Company, I cannot give almost double rations to eighty soldiers."
"We are Baker Company." Corporal Kaczynski "Kat" Stanislaus, a hefty fellow from Geneva, Switzerland, and a good friend of mine replies. He is a mustached fellow of about twenty-five and what we in the army call a career corporal, a man who is comfortable with his station and does not nor will not put on that third chevron.
Sergeant Krassau is adamant at first, then reluctantly he puts an extra helping of a hearty beef stew, potatoes and a large ration loaf on Stanislaus' mess tin. I grin to myself as my own ample helping is heaped into my mess tin. Kat joins me as we fill our cups with strong, steaming coffee and sit down at one of the large picnic tables.
"These certainly are fine pickings after fifteen days of field rations." Kat remarks.
James Fressan, a wiry curly haired youth of eighteen, Jay Wiersbowski a stocky little fellow from New York, and "Pilgrim" a slender fellow with black, oily hair and a pragmatist's air about him. These three enlisted with me a year earlier from the same ACME field office in San Francisco. Altogether there are about twenty ACME detectives I know personally that are serving with me during this war.
"Indeed." I reply, placing my sand brown forage cap on my belt, "Not nearly as good as the time you scrounged up those five lobsters in Salerno, very fine dining before going to El Agheila."
"That was over six months ago." Fressan remarks.
"I swear they're trying to make me puke with this stuff." Wiersbowski replies.
"Maybe Pilgrim can use the radio shed to hatch chickens in, yeah." Fressan remarks.
"Ducks in the latrines, why not? Sweet little ducklings. We can fatten them up with jam from your filthy feet." Pilgrim jokes back.
"You dirty pig." Wiersbowski snaps back.
"Why, what's wrong. In the morning they'd feed on Fressan's toe jam."
Grim soldier's humor, keeps one operating under the difficult conditions that fighting in the conditions the desert imposes upon us. There are three secrets to good morale for a soldier, good food, adequate sleep and the sweetest thing one can ever hear.
"Mail call!" a darkly tanned corporal calls out as the supply truck pulls up to the field kitchen near where our barracks are set.
"Shapiro." He calls out.
"Garland."
Sergeant McCron, second platoon, fifth squad's squad leader replies, "He's in the hospital."
"Bronsky?"
"Here." Corporal Bronsky, another friend and definitely almost as easy going as a career corporal can go.
"Gallatin."
At the sound of my name, I stand up and receive a couple of letters. Doubled rations, a cup of coffee that isn't watery and made with recycled grounds, and now a letter home all equal a splendid day in my book. Coupled of course with the fact that I am alive, and can now enjoy my first decent shower in days is that one of the two letters is one I've waited for quite some time. This goes without saying any mail is better than no mail at all.
"From Andi?" Kat says, looking over my shoulder. I shoot him a sideway glance that says I want a little privacy.
"I don't need to read the return address to find out who wrote you. I can tell by the way you perk up when you hear your name at roll call, and when she's the author you start beaming like a beacon." Kat grins, putting walking me back to the table.
"Aren't you gonna read it?" Wiersbowski asks.
"Not yet. Let me finish this food first." I reply.
"I think what our British friend; Gallatin is saying is he'd rather have a little privacy to read it." Bronsky jokes, blowing smoke from a cigarette. He is a little smaller than Kat, taller, but with that same languid and easy going demeanor that characterizes the Swiss career corporal.
"She better not be talking about those hamsters, it makes me hungry just thinking about it." Pilgrim replies. We all have grown used to this, ever since the time Pilgrim was trapped behind an enemy counterattack and had to survive by killing and eating mice for three days before we could attack with reinforcements from the 27th Armored Division. Somehow he's developed a taste for rodents.
"Pilgrim, I doubt Andi would appreciate you going into her house and making a meal of her hamsters." I reply.
"Disappointed Pilgrim?" Fressan laughs as he walks up to use the latrine, but instead, tripping and falling over a gas mask that someone left on the ground.
"About the only time we use those are whenever Fressan farts in an enclosed space." Pilgrim cracks.
"Ha ha ha ha." Fressan replies sarcastically and dusts himself off.
I place my forage cap atop me head, gather my gear and rifle, and walk off to the barracks, another large tent, really with several cots inside. But in the center are the satellite phones which we are permitted to use. Kat follows after me.
"Gonna call Andi?" he asks.
I nod in reply. Kat is as genuine a friend as one can ask for, all the others I consider my friends as well, but Kat is that good combination of big brother, NCO, friend, and mentor. "She must be very special to you my friend." Kat continues.
The other piece of mail I receive is a quick postcard from Zack and Ivy, a picture of the Swiss Alps, "It should be snowing any day now back home." Kat muses.
"It's almost Andi's favorite season, she loves winter. I'm the exact opposite." I reply.
"And is she in Switzerland." Kat asks.
"No, she's back home in Boston. But a couple of my old colleagues from ACME are there." I reply.
"Curious, an ACME braintrust in the army, what a combination." Kat remarks, if he thinks ACME detectives are all brains and no muscle he hasn't run into Ivy.
"Hey Wiersbowski, Pilgrim, and Fressan are ACME detectives." I protest.
"Nothing against ACME sleuths, but I never imagined independent and smart thinkers as making good soldiers." Kat replies as we walk into the barracks.
Still carrying my rucksack, rifle, and gear I walk to the satellite phone, punch in a number I know by heart and await. Three rings later brings me an answer, "Hi Miss Ryvers, is Andi home?" I ask, Kat's grin says 'you sound like a sophomore at his first high school dance' as I wait.
"Andrea! Come here, it's Martin." I hear over the phone.
"Coming mom!" I hear in reply.
"Martin? How are you?" I hear.
I can't help but smile, despite being weary from having humped six kilometers back from the trenches and being weighed down by my rifle and gear which I haven't put down yet. "I'm just fine Andi." I reply, saying the first thing that comes to mind, "God it's great to hear your voice again."
As I speak to her, I am instantly transferred back to a fantasy world of memories that do not entail trench digging, advancing without pause, or facing swarms of the living dead across the no man's land. In my mind's eye I can see Andi on the other side of the line. I can see her slender frame resting against a table, her petite build, the warmth in those gray eyes and the light reflecting off her chestnut brown hair.
"How's Rhett Garland's doing." Andi says. Rhett Garland, whom two days ago was wounded in action manning his 3.7 cm anti-tank gun, he was an old friend of Andi and Ivy that the latter went through ACME training with.
"He's wounded." I say, being caught flatfooted, "But not badly, he's in the hospital to the rear. He should be just fine."
My last sentence was a flat out lie if I ever told one. The second one I'm not to sure about. "In fact I'll go over and see if he's alright." I continue on.
After I hang up the phone I say, "Kat, I'm going to the field hospital to check on Garland."
"Good," says another voice, Pilgrim, "I'm going with you."
Both of us gather up our packs, place our helmets on our web gear, don our forage caps and sling our rifles. We walk about half a kilometer when a sympathetic truck driver offers us a ride to the hospital.
We find Rhett Garland at a hospital bed, and he is not in good shape. His face is ashen and his eyes have withdrawn into his head. A noticeable stump can be seen, as one leg has been amputated at the knee. "Have either of you fellas found my watch?" he asks weakly, his Texas twang still present. When he was unconscious, someone light fingered his watch.
"No Rhett, we haven't." I reply.
"Remember I told you no man should carry as good a watch as that." Pilgrim says as I elbow him in the rib cage. Pilgrim is a little insincere, and speaks his mind a little too much. What is the point of arguing over a watch anyway, at any point it is highly unlikely Garland is going to leave this place alive. Pilgrim stalks off outside the hospital to go smoke a cigarette as I stand vigil beside Garland's bed.
He is feverish, sweating, and shivering, "You must eat to regain your strength."
"I wanted to be head forester when I got out. But I won't be able to do that now. What's the use?" he says.
"They have splendid artificial limbs now, they'll attach one to you as soon as you're better." I reply, the atmosphere, a mixture of pus, sweat, carbolic, and gangrene is making me ill.
A group of doctors is milling amongst the beds, selecting those most fit for travel to be sent to hospitals in Sicily and Italy, they pass Rhett's bed without even looking down. "Don't worry, maybe next time." I reply.
"You'll write my mamma if I don't make it back, right?" Rhett asks. The look in his eyes is that of a man who has given up. His poor mother is going to be devastated if he dies.
His mother was a rotund, brunette woman with graying streaks in her hair. She had the least composure of all the mothers at No. 4 Barracks, Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where we finished advanced infantry training and where a chosen number of us had been chosen to be one of "The Africans", soldiers sent to Army Corps Africa, instead of being shipped of to the hellish house to house fighting that Dyson City, located on a relatively new island on the North Atlantic, was being fought. When she learned Rhett was in my unit she said, "Please tell me you'll look after Rhett."
I replied that I would, but how can a man look after another in a combat zone, it simply cannot be done. Rhett had been part of a four man crew manning a 3.7 cm anti-tank gun, driving off a massive assault by enemy arachnids when a Gollum sniper shot him in the knee. The quarrel that buried itself deep into flesh, muscle and bone had fragmented into several pieces that made individual removal almost impossible.
"Now, now, don't talk like that." I say calmly, "It's only because of the amputation that you feel this way. Get plenty to eat and plenty of rest and you'll be fine."
Even as I say this, I can see this won't be so. The ashen tone of Rhett's skin shows that death is claiming him from inside out. His breathing begins to become more labored, "Gallatin, please write my mamma, tell her I died like a man."
These are the man's last words before he fades. "Orderly!" I shout into the hospital, "Bed 2126, Amputated knee!" I shout as I see Rhett Garland fading away quickly.
The world ought to come up to him and say "This is Rhett Garland, nineteen and a half years old, he shouldn't have to die!"
Even as I call for the orderly, I can see it is too late. "There are at least five amputated knees in this hospital." A balding, overworked and stressed hospital orderly replies, as he walks up to me and checks Rhett's bed.
"He's gone." The man replies, summoning two stretcher bearers with a body bag. I remove one of Garland's dog tags, stuffing it in my pocket, and collect his few belongings. I walk out of the hospital, not wishing to stay in the stifling atmosphere within as well as not looking at a dying man once known as PFC Rhett Garland, United Systems Army.
Pilgrim hitches us a ride on another truck and as we ride back to our billet I say nothing. The bouncing of the vehicle and my already exhausted mind lull me to sleep and I lean against a supply crate full of hand grenades and sleep.
Sleep for me brings me into a lot of things, sometimes it brings me nightmares of the frontlines, or of that vicious raid at El Agheila we repulsed, other times it brings to mind a pleasant fantasy world that takes me far and away from the sand and heat of the desert war.
It brings me to a pleasant pre-war world this time around. I'm sitting at coffee shop of a book store in Boston, where I decide to spend some vacation time after a case. I am dividing my time between Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and looking around for my date. It's a blind date, one that Ivy set me up for a week ago when she heard I was spending two weeks in Boston after cracking a VILE art theft scheme there. I have no bloody idea as to who I'm meeting, I only know to be sitting at a particular table closest to the fiction section.
About a half hour passes, by my watch, 8:30 PM, that's when she's supposed to show up. I see her then, a slender, petite frame, standing about an inch or so shorter than me. I see a pair of gray eyes scanning the tables, looking for my table. Her shoulder length brown hair piles nicely over that purple turtleneck she's wearing. She is obviously comfortable with the fall weather where I'm already wearing a leather jacket over a long sleeved collared shirt.
"Is this seat taken?" she asks.
"No, it isn't." I reply, putting my book away.
"You're English?" she asks.
"I'm from a small country town called Nutwood Forest." I reply, hoping the name of my little town doesn't sound too ridiculous.
She grins at me, "You must be my date then."
"Do you know anyone named Ivy Darren?" I ask.
"She's the one who told me you'd be here." Andi replies, then noticing my book she asks, "You ever read any more of Verne?"
"I just got into his work." I reply, always happy to have another reader to talk to, "Perhaps you'd like to talk about it over a cup of coffee. My treat."
And so this whole two year relationship began over a cup of coffee and a novel. About then I awaken, blinking sleep from my eyes and finding myself out by our billet as Pilgrim shakes me awake. We say our thanks to the truck driver and set down our packs, rifles, and web gear next to our cots.
I strip off my uniform blouse, seeing two gray bugs crawl out from it. Lice from the front lines, I have in mind an idea to visit the delousing station in a moment. Pilgrim and I divide Garland's clothing between us. I get two faded sand brown uniform blouses and a belt, where Pilgrim gets two sets of trousers. We divide the socks and undershirts between us, waste not want not is the name of the game in this theater of operation. Kat goes in and distributes other gear items to the rest of us. Wiersbowski comes away with Rhett's canteen, Fressan gets an extra forage cap, Bronsky comes away with a Bowie knife, and Kat a sharpened spade. I take the spare blanket at the bottom of the pack.
As I look around the barracks, I notice we all resemble miners and coal diggers rather than soldiers. I walk to the nearest shower, and watch as the water rinses the filth from my skin. Toweling off, I throw on my undershirt and trousers and walk off to my cot. With the blousing of our trousers, and the great drainpipes of our boots we resemble hulking giants in uniform. Stripping it away, wearing only shorts and undershirts, as we mostly spend our time wearing in the barracks behind the lines, we resemble civilians again, our narrow boyish frames would cause the casual observer to wonder how we ever manage to carry our packs.
I lie in my cot, throwing my greatcoat and two spare blankets over myself and get ready to sleep. As I do so, I prepare to dream of my old life at ACME and Nutwood Forest. As well as Andi, who's picture I keep in my helmet at all times.