Arthur dreamed about guns. Not the wounds guns make, but the guns themselves, the feel of cold metal and the scent of gun oil and the racheting sound of machinegun fire.
Or worse, the short sharp bark of a Luger, a single, execution style shot that would leave no room for the surgeon's art.
He would wake, sweating and stiff, his teeth clenched to hold in the screams, desperately hoping that his tentmates had slept through his thrashing. They never asked what he dreamed about, and he would not have told them if they had.
The war is no place for a man who does not love guns.
When he did dream of wounds, they were never nightmares, like the gun dreams were. Wounds were, after all, why he was here. When he did dream of them, they were always medic's dreams- cutting, tying, healing.
In his dreams, there were only wounds, not people. Never faces, never names. And he was always pared down to his purest form- a pair of hands.
No room for doubt there, no room for failure.
When he awoke, hungry and hot and bitten by insects, with a full bladder and with feet that were swollen and chafed from weeks in the same mildewing socks, he wished that those dreams were real.
There had been a lot of girls at the train station when he left London. Some of them he knew and some he didn't. They kissed him for luck- it was the first time he'd ever been kissed by a girl who wasn't a child- and they gave him flowers and candy and called him an angel.
Maybe it was because he was so young.
It was funny now, that when the other boys talked about women, he never remembered those girls. Instead, he thought of his mother- her sweet face and wide forehead, the soft waves of her brown hair. Or his sister Margaret, still in smocks and ribbons- her yellow curls, her big green eyes, the gap in her smile where she'd lost a baby tooth.
By the time he came back, her smile would be whole again. If he came back at all.
They made fun of his short stature, of his messy, too long hair, of his hands. Women's hands, they said, too small, too soft, too tender.
He told them they would be glad of his hands if they got hurt. 'These hands will put you back together,' he said, not even boasting. 'These hands will call you back from Heaven's door.'
In his spare time he mended their uniforms with tiny even stitches, and one after the other they began to call him 'Doc'.
The first time Arthur saw the American, he thought, this one is new.
He didn't mean new to the war, although the blond boy was new to that, too.
He meant something else. Maybe new was the wrong word. Maybe it should have been 'unspoiled'.
The American's uniform was the color of dust, like everything here, but his hair, for all its lack of washing, was still golden, and his eyes were still blue.
The weapon over his shoulder was new, too- a machinegun, shiny and black and deadly. The way the boy wore it, the way he cradled it in his hands when he was cleaning it, Arthur could tell that he loved it.
That gun had never killed anyone; the boy had never taken anyone's life with it. If he had, he wouldn't love it so much.
Or maybe, Arthur thought, maybe he would love it even more.
The American fit right in here. None of the other soldiers teased him the way they teased Arthur. It didn't matter that the blond boy was young, too- maybe even a few months younger than Arthur- because he was one of them, and they knew it.
His name was Alfred. Arthur learned that by accident. It was funny, an American having an English name like that, although all of his mates called him 'Al'. He was loud and cheerful and unafraid, and people seemed to gravitate to him because of that. Even Arthur was drawn to him.
He watched from a distance, never joining in, but one day he looked up to see blue eyes on him. The American had noticed his stare. To his shame, Arthur blushed and looked down.
If the others had seen, they would have laughed and called him a girl. No one saw, he thought, he had been lucky.
And what had he been doing, anyway, staring like a loon?
Was he jealous of the American? Of the easy way he held his gun, of the fearless eyes and the bright smile and the devil-may-care attitude?
He needn't be. He had been here longer, after all. He had seen too much darkness to shine anymore, but that happened to everyone.
Soon enough the American would lose his smile. He would board his tank. He would go out with the rest of them, and even if he came back, he wouldn't come back the same.
Maybe he would come back whole, but he wouldn't come back shining.
Arthur liked to draw- another thing his soft, surgeon's hands were good for. A pencil and a scrap of paper and he could forget for a moment that he'd eaten nothing but dry biscuit and peas for a month, that his feet hurt, that his mouth was sore from lack of salt, that it was too hot and too bright and too far away from Dover, and that he might never go home again.
He drew the flitting birds, and the dark-skinned children, and the tanks, and sometimes he drew his fellow soldiers. Sometimes he drew the American.
He drew him laughing, his wide eyes and his smile, his white teeth. The lock of hair that stuck up over his forehead, the curve of his jaw, the shadow of his neck where it went into his uniform.
He drew him without looking, after a while. He didn't need to look.
It wasn't fascination, not exactly. He didn't know what it was.
But he did it so much that he forgot to hide it, and one day the American caught him with a drawing in his hand. They had never spoken before, but suddenly here he was, looking down at the slip of white, on which his image grinned, cocky and too young and too perfect to live.
'That's pretty good.'
Arthur looked up into sea blue eyes, and felt his stomach turn over.
How did you explain something like this?
It would mean more teasing, maybe even a fight. He didn't kid himself that he could win, his surgeon's hands weren't meant for punching.
But there was no sarcasm in that voice, on that open face.
The American reached into his pocket and pulled out a bit of chocolate wrapped in foil. 'Want some?'
American chocolate was different from English chocolate, although Arthur couldn't pinpoint how. It melted the same, but the taste was sharper, sweeter. It coated his tongue, and for a minute he forgot that it was peas and biscuit for dinner again.
'You're the medic, aren't you?' Alfred asked, chewing his own piece of chocolate with slow relish. 'The one with the magic hands.'
'I'm Arthur,' Arthur said. For some reason, he wanted the boy to know his name.
That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't. For some reason the American seemed to single Arthur out after that.
For his friendship, for his company.
Arthur couldn't imagine why, he was certainly not compelling, not like this boy was, but Alfred didn't seem to mind.
They didn't have anything else to do, so they just talked. Arthur talked about his mother and his sister, mostly, small things. Sometimes about home. He missed England with an ache that was almost physical, and Alfred seemed to enjoy the descriptions of hedgerows and cliffs.
Perhaps he didn't have them where he came from.
Alfred talked about everything except himself. He was an orphan and he'd never had a home to speak of. He was a year younger than Arthur- he had run away to join the war, he was only 17. Arthur learned that much. He loved guns and bombs and tanks. He'd wanted to be a machinegunner from the start, he loved it.
Arthur could have told him he wouldn't love it so much when he went out and saw what his gun could do, but he didn't bother.
Their time together became a source of pleasure for Arthur- a quiet moment, a bit of sweetness. Not just the treats, though Alfred usually had something sweet on him to share- chocolate, taffy, a bit of fruit- but the friendship itself. He'd never had a friend before.
It wouldn't last, of course, nothing in wartime ever did.
He had imagined the war ending it, in the worst way possible of course- friendships between soldiers frequently ended that way,
But he never imagined ending it himself.
He had gotten comfortable in the American's presence. When Alfred asked him if he had a girlfriend back home, he confessed that he did not. He expected gentle ribbing, but Alfred only smiled and asked him if he'd ever had one.
He had not.
He had never kissed a girl (although a few had kissed him), had never held a girl's hand, or taken her strolling, or gone with one to the cinema.
When he admitted it, Alfred nodded as if he understood. 'And a boy?' he asked then. 'Have you ever kissed a boy?'
Of course.
Arthur should have expected this. Still, he had not. Not from Alfred.
He flushed and rose to his feet.
'No,' he said coolly. 'No I have not. And you should know better than to listen to camp gossip.'
'Wait,' Alfred said, and 'Please,' but he was already walking away.
There were no more chats after that, no more candy and fruit, no more drawings. Arthur made a point of avoiding the American, and Alfred seemed to get it.
Maybe it was anger at what he perceived as a betrayal that stung Arthur so sharply, or maybe it was something close to guilt.
That might have been the end of it, then, after all. They might never have spoken again.
But Alfred was more persistent than Arthur had given him credit for. One night, Arthur found himself cornered in the tent by the boy he thought he had forgotten.
'I didn't mean to offend you,' Alfred said. 'I wasn't teasing. I asked you that because… I was hoping you'd say yes.'
Arthur was bemused and befuddled. He wanted to be angry, but most of him was not.
Had he forgotten that charming grin, that careless lock of hair? In shadows, Alfred's hair was bronze and his eyes were violet.
'Why?' Arthur asked finally.
'Because then I might have had a chance.' Bold words from a bold boy, and whatever he might have been feeling, they were too bold for Arthur.
The strange sinking feeling in his stomach frightened him, for a moment his head whirled with vertigo. 'I- I can't,' he said. For the second time he walked away and left Alfred alone.
This parting was worse than the first. Arthur sensed that Alfred would not try again, and he did not blame him- it was a frightening thing to admit, that you weren't like other men.
Arthur didn't want to admit it.
He had a life ahead of him, maybe, he had a chance at a marriage and a family some day, he had a sister and mother who would not understand, and a regiment who already thought he was a little bit less than a man.
Maybe he just didn't want to prove them right.
Or maybe he was scared.
For a while he had to avoid Alfred, but then Alfred suddenly became a lot easier to avoid- his tank rolled out, and for the first time he took his gun to war.
Arthur felt sick when he first found out. He'd never said goodbye. But why should he have? It's not like they were friends. Not anymore.
Still, he couldn't help but worry. Maybe Alfred wouldn't come back. Maybe he'd come back in pieces. Maybe he would come back whole, but with the shiny rubbed off him.
It didn't seem like it could happen, not to him, but Arthur knew that it could.
How would Alfred feel, when he pulled that trigger for the first time? When he saw what that gun could do?
Would he weep, or would he smile?
Arthur wouldn't know. He shouldn't care.
He had had his chance, and he hadn't taken it.
When Alfred came back- if he came back- he probably wouldn't even remember the quiet medic he'd pursued.
Alfred did come back, of course. He came back with the other wounded. The first sight Arthur got of him was blood. Blood on that dust-colored uniform. Blood in that blond hair. Blood in those sea-blue eyes.
He thought the American was dead, and his surgeon's hands betrayed him by shaking.
But Alfred wasn't dead.
He'd taken a head wound, and he was unconscious, but he was breathing and he wasn't missing any limbs.
There were other men who weren't so lucky, and Arthur saw them first. He stitched up a stomach and sawed off a foot, and he had a boy die under his hands from a punctured lung.
In between surgeries he washed up, until the bowl of water was as red as blood.
Finally it was Alfred's turn. Neat little stitches could sew up his head, but they couldn't wake him up. One pupil was dilated more than the other. He was dying, as good as dead. Arthur had seen wounds like that before- you could do nothing, because all the damage was inside. You just had to wait.
Sometimes they woke up- more often they did not.
'I should have told him,' he said to no one, as he washed Alfred's blood from his hands. 'I should have told him I still wanted to be his friend.'
The gun was gone. Alfred would be unhappy when he woke up. If he woke up.
He's not new anymore, Arthur thought. I wonder what he's seen. I wonder what he's done.
Maybe if Alfred woke up, he could ask.
Maybe if Alfred woke up, he could tell him that he had made a mistake.
More wounded came in, and Arthur left the American to tend them. He could not hold one boy's hand while another five died, even if that was all he wanted to do.
At supper time, he could not eat.
Instead, he sat by Alfred's pallet. The American's breath was shallow, his skin was pale. He never moved.
His hand, when Arthur lifted it, was cold.
'I should have told you,' Arthur said, leaning down and looking into that still face. 'I shouldn't have been scared to tell you how I felt.'
He had never kissed a girl, he had never kissed boy.
Had Alfred?
If he never woke up, he never would.
Arthur did not know what impulse made him lean down. Alfred's lips were dry and slightly parted. It was barely a brush, a hesitant touch, so fleeting it might never have been and then Arthur was pulling back, his cheeks on fire, his heart pounding like a fool's.
Did he expect Alfred to wake up, like some fairy tale princess? If a kiss was enough to heal a fractured skull, there would be no need for surgeons.
Arthur wiped at his eyes, dimly aware that he was crying. 'Don't die,' he said. 'Please.'
Despite his pleas, Alfred lay like the dead for two days. Arthur began to think that it might be a mercy if he did die. This slow death by starvation or thirst- it would be crueler than a quick one.
He dripped water between the American's chapped lips, but could not be sure that the boy swallowed it. Perhaps he was too far gone to need water, or perhaps it was those drops that kept him alive. If so, Arthur could not bring himself to stop offering them.
In between tending the other wounded, he held Alfred's hand and spoke to him. He told him all of the things he wished he had told him when he was awake- that he was charming, that he was beautiful, that Arthur wanted to be his friend, and that if he woke up, he would be.
That he was sorry.
Alfred never heard him, but that did not matter. 'If you wake up,' Arthur kept saying. 'If you wake up.'
On the third day, without ceremony, Alfred opened his eyes. 'If I wake up, what?' he asked.
For a moment, Arthur stared at him, dazed. Then he squeezed the hand he held. 'You're alive!' he said.
'Of course I am. Didn't you save me, with your magic hands?'
Arthur swallowed hard. 'No,' he said finally. 'I couldn't. I couldn't do anything. I sewed up your cut, and then all I could do was wait.' He looked down into Alfred's face, into those sea-blue eyes. 'Do you have any idea how that felt?'
Alfred blinked slowly and licked his dry lips. 'Nope,' he said. 'I don't. Why don't you tell me?'
So Arthur told him- told how he had longed for nothing more than for Alfred to open his eyes, told how he had ached at the thought that Alfred might not, told how he had wished more than anything for a second chance.
When he was done, Alfred smiled a shadow of his old smile. 'And now you have it,' he answered. 'So what are you going to do with it?'
'I'm going to feed you,' Arthur said. And he did. Peas and biscuit were no more delicious softened in water than they were when not, but two days worth of hunger had left Alfred without a protest. When he had finished, Arthur wiped his mouth gently. 'How do you feel?' he asked.
'Fine,' Alfred said. Arthur expected him to ask for his gun, but he didn't. Maybe he didn't want it back, or maybe, for some reason, Arthur was more compelling, after all.
The thought made him blush, and so did Alfred's eyes, locked on his, strangely challenging.
Suddenly he wondered if maybe Alfred had heard them, all those things he had said.
And then he thought, so what if he heard? I meant them, didn't I?
Alfred stared at him, waiting, and finally Arthur worked up the courage to speak.
'Do you remember the question you asked me? About if I ever kissed a boy?' A strange way to start, but Alfred seemed unfazed.
'Yeah,' he said. 'Of course I remember.'
'Well, I told you I hadn't, but if you asked me now I would have to give you a different answer.'
It was all Arthur could do to get the words out, and afterward he blushed again at his own boldness.
But to his surprise, Alfred's smile disappeared.
'You kissed someone else?' He started to sit up and Arthur pushed him back down, wary for the nausea or headache that sudden motion could bring.
'No, idiot, I kissed you,' he said, checking his patients stitches, his pulse.
Impatient, Alfred waited until he drew back, then accused him with lifted eyebrows and the quiver of that errant lock of hair.
'Yes,' Arthur admitted again, 'I kissed you. I didn't know if you would ever wake.'
For a moment there was silence, and then Alfred's lips started to twitch. 'That's not fair,' he pointed out, hiding his smile. 'I was unconscious.'
'I know you were,' Arthur said.
'I'm not unconscious now.'
'No. You aren't.'
This time the eyes were bold too. 'So you should do it again.'
It wasn't much as kisses go- one participant was an inexperienced blushing virgin, and the other was recovering from a life-threatening head injury. But neither one of them complained.