The lovely Silver Blue Eyed Wolf challenged me to do a Bubbline Wartime AU and I'll be honest, at first I was at a bit of a loss as to what to write about. But the more I researched women in war the more I got ideas until I knew exactly how I wanted to play it. This isn't really a funny fic or even terribly fun, it's one of the darkest things I've ever written. But I am very proud of it and I really enjoyed both writing and researching this fic. I hope it was what you wanted?
If you didn't already know, a great number of countries fought for the Allies during the First World War and South Africa sent three regiments of infantry, most hurriedly recruited from the countryside and a fair mix of ethnic backgrounds. There were dozens of reported cases of women disguising themselves as boys to join up and fight and probably a huge number more that went undetected or unreported.
Content Warning: War. Character death, descriptions of death and injuries, potentially offensive ethnic slurs that I have only included for historical accuracy.
By the time they pulled her out of the mud she'd given up trying for any kind of dignity or composure and was screaming for her Daddy, screaming with the pain of it but still alive and that was all the medics that loaded her onto the stretcher cared about. Alive meant they'd need to get her into the ambulance and drive her back to the field hospital and all the time they took doing that they weren't standing out in no-man's-land within reach of the German guns. It wasn't long before the screaming was too much for the medics and they put her under with chloroform, the only thing even close to a pain killer that they still had stocks of.
It was almost dark when they finally trundled into the field hospital and unloaded her onto the first nurse they could find.
"You can't just dump injured men here without giving us any details! Did you even take his name? Or regiment? Where am I to send him if he recovers?"
"If. That's a problem for tomorrow, sweetheart. There are more men out there dying right now, we don't have time to ask every Tommy cut down by the guns what colour his mother's eyes are. You're a bright girl, you can ask him yourself. If he recovers."
And then they were away again, leaving one frustrated nurse and one filthy unconscious soldier with a bullet hole in their leg.
"Come on then, brave lad. Least I can do is clean you up." the nurse muttered to herself as she wheeled the stretcher inside.
She started to come around again while the filth and blood were still being sponged from her wound, whimpering at first and then screaming again from the burn of boric acid.
"Shh, quiet now, it's ok. I need to clean this so you don't get an infection. It's not too bad, you've been lucky. What's your name?"
Her name? Oh God, it was so hard to think around the pain. Her name. Something important about that.
"Mar-Marshall. My name is Marshall." she caught herself at the last minute, remembering that she was a boy now and her name was Marshall.
"They give you a surname to go with it? Might take a while to find your records if all I have to go on is 'Marshall'."
"Abadeer. Lance Corporal, Third South African Battalion. Oh Lord, my leg."
"Lance Corporal Abadeer. Well you've been lucky, like I said. You were shot through the calf and took a blow to the head when you fell, you'll need to stay here for a while."
The lamplight was low, it was too dark to make out much of anything but when she squinted past the pain and filth and blood still covering her face there was the vague outline of an angel in a starched white and blue uniform looking back at her. Perhaps she'd died out there in the mud after all, the field hospital could easily have been Heaven compared with the trenches.
"Listen," the nurse continued quietly, glancing around to make sure nobody had overheard, "I know you're underage. I'm not stupid. You're not in trouble, you're not the first I've seen and you won't be the last. How old are you, son?"
Twenty.
"Eighteen."
"Like I said, you're not in trouble. Fifteen? Fourteen?"
"Fifteen." Better to just agree, it did her cover no good to argue about it. So she could pass as a fifteen year old boy? Fine, then she'd be a fifteen year old boy if she had to.
"You poor lads. You're just children, what do you know about fighting a war? You should be in school, or taking supper with your Mama. This isn't any place for a child, Marshall."
Despite the pain and the lingering drowsiness from the chloroform she frowned, stung. It was one thing to say she looked young, another entirely to call her a child. She hadn't been a child even when she'd been the age of one.
"Excuse me, I am no child. I have shot and killed men, I've taken out more than my fair share of Boche. What would a pretty nurse know about the front line? Shouldn't you be taking a cab around London town, maybe gossiping in the theatre with your friends or attending a dance hall?" She ground the words out past the pain, agony making her voice slide back up in pitch instead of the deeper tones she tried to use as much as possible these days. Dammit, she needed to maintain cover. Male. Boy. Deep voice, no matter that it felt like her leg was on fire.
"I've been here since the start, son. I've seen things you can't imagine. Sleep now, and save your strength and bravado for someone it might be some use against. I can't give you morphine, it's too addictive and we're almost out anyway. All we have is brandy but that should put you under for a while. I'll be back in the morning to check your wound."
A bottle was held to her lips and she swallowed as much of the burning liquid as she could, trying to not cough or make a face at the strength of it. Satisfied that she'd be no more trouble for the rest of the night the nurse stood and made to leave.
"Hey, wait! What's your name? So I know who to ask for tomorrow."
The nurse paused, visibly hesitating.
"Nurse Sugar. But you can call me Bonnie. Goodnight, Marshall."
"Goodnight."
She left, taking the lamp with her and leaving the injured soldier alone.
"Bonnie. That means beautiful." she murmured to herself in the darkness after the footsteps had disappeared down the hall.
Injured, in pain, drugged but somehow more comfortable than she'd been in months, 'Marshall' slipped into sleep and forgot all about the trenches and the war and the burn of a bullet going through her leg, forgot everything but sweet almond shaped eyes and cool hands washing her clean.
...
"You're a darkie."
Those weren't the words she wanted to be woken with. She'd have preferred 'Marcy, you breakfast is ready.' or 'Do you want to get up or do you want to sleep more?'. Frowning, already on the defensive, she opened her eyes to a blonde boy with a bandage around his head staring at her from the next bed.
"They brung you in last night with your leg all shot up. I saw the pretty nurse put you in bed and clean the wound, you screamed like a girl. I've never met a darkie before." he continued, staring at her in fascination.
"Cape Coloured." she replied, voice still thick from sleep and the after effects of the alcohol and chloroform. "M'from South Africa. 'Darkie' is offensive. You can call me a Cape Coloured though, that's ok. Or just Marshall."
"Marshall. Wow. Cape Coloured names are just like regular people names, huh? I'm Private Finn Mertens with the Royal Irish Regiment. I got shot." he indicated to his head.
"Normally when people get shot in the head they don't walk around talking." she observed, already sick of how enthusiastic he was.
"My helmet got in the way. Sarge said I needed to get the wound checked and now it's all full of crap. I'm gonna have a scar." the boy informed her proudly.
"Well done for you." she muttered, in a foul mood and not wanting to talk to the boy any more than she had to. Her leg still ached fiercely and her head was thick and throbbing from the alcohol she'd been dosed with the night before.
"Here, Marshall. I heard you talking with Nurse Sugar last night. You're underage, too. I'm fifteen next week." he whispered with a grin. "Isn't this jolly? Us lads together and making friends."
"Yes, jolly is definitely the word I'd use to describe this war, Mertens. I've never had more fun than getting shot in the leg and watching the men I trained with cut down by machine gun fire right in front of my eyes. I feel decidedly jolly." she drawled sarcastically.
"I like you, Marshall. You're funny." the boy told her happily. "Hey, you know that pretty nurse who tucked you in last night? I think she's sweet on me. I'm going to marry her, soon as I'm old enough."
"Mertens, you're fourteen. And she's what, nineteen? Twenty? By the time you're old enough she'll be twenty two at least and I'm willing to bet already nursing her firstborn. Sorry to crush your dreams, my boy. But she's too old for you." she replied with a sigh.
"She thinks I'm eighteen." he informed her solemnly.
'Marshall' looked him over. The boy was short and round faced with wide blue eyes, messy blonde hair and a thin line of peachy fuzz across his lip where he'd optimistically tried to grow a moustache. He didn't look almost fifteen.
"No, she doesn't. Nobody thinks you're eighteen."
"You're a funny one, Private Marshall. I like you." he repeated with a smile.
"Lance Corporal Abadeer."
"Lance Corporal? Wow. I'm just a Private."
"My company's Lance Corporal stepped on a mine and ended up as a nasty stain I couldn't wash out of my shirt. So I got promoted." she replied distantly. Seven months in the trenches was long enough that she could talk about it without feeling like she was going to vomit, but she still didn't like to think of it if she could help it. He'd been barely ten paces ahead of her and they'd talked the night before about his sweetheart back home, the baker's daughter he was going to marry just as soon as he got leave. And then he'd stepped on a landmine and his war ended. Her stomach rolled a little, perhaps she couldn't quite think of it calmly yet after all.
"Nasty way to go. My Sarge is coming by today to see how I'm doing and give me some advice for proposing to Nurse Sugar. He's a good guy, a real brick."
"Well good luck with that." she muttered, already exhausted from the brief conversation.
She rolled over in her bed and tried to go back to sleep, hoping the annoying Irish boy would take the hint and leave her alone. Perhaps she did drift off to sleep for a while because when she woke again it was a different and much more welcome voice addressing her.
"Oh. Good morning, Lance Corporal. How does your leg feel?"
She opened her eyes again and it was the same pretty nurse from the night before. 'Pretty' didn't really do her justice though, in the full light of day she was almost unbelievably beautiful. Definitely an angel, then.
"Uh. It hurts, but I've had worse." That was a lie; she'd never felt anything as terrible as the burn off a bullet entering her flesh. There was no way she was admitting that to anyone though, let alone the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen. No wonder Mertens wanted to marry her.
"Well I'm glad. You, um, you're not really supposed to be in this hospital, Marshall. You should be in the coloured hospital. But I don't want to move you until your leg is healed so you'll have to stay here for a while. Don't tell anyone I let you stay, though. The colour of your skin shouldn't dictate the medical care you receive and you're very pale, for a coloured. You could pass for Italian, maybe, or Spanish. I couldn't get a good look last night because you were so dirty and it was dark. If anyone asks you're just tanned, yes? Anyway, let's have a look at those dressings, see how your bullet hole is healing."
It was a neat red circle in her calf, almost perfectly round and finger shaped. That was going to make an interesting looking scar, at least. For all it ached and burned, especially when the nurse washed it out with more boric acid, it was a clean sort of burning and there didn't seem to be any pus that came away with the half dried blood. She supposed that was good, at least. No infection for the time being.
"I'll be back to change the dressing again later, just shout for me if you need anything." the beautiful nurse nodded, flashing her a smile that turned her already weak legs to water. "And Private Mertens, how's your head this morning?"
"It aches, Miss. Feels sort of big, like, under the bandage. Is that bad?" he asked her anxiously.
"Well let's have a look." she soothed, smiling compassionately to him and gently unwrapping the thin strip of gauze from around his forehead. "Oh Finn, this is infected. It's swollen up with pus, I need to drain it. This is going to hurt, son. Can you be brave?"
"Brave is my middle name." he replied happily.
Even still when she began squeezing the wound he swore like a sailor and tears of pain were beginning to leak from the corners of his eyes by the time she was done.
"There, and I'll put a fresh poultice on, see if we can't draw out the infection. You're going to have quite the scar, Finn." she told him regretfully.
"Ladies like scars, my Sarge said so. Said I'd have to make sure to marry a girl that was extra beautiful so she was lovely enough for two. Like you, Miss. I think you look like a princess."
"You're a very kind boy, Finn. I've got to see other patients now. Are you boys getting on well?"
"Like a house on fire, Miss. Marshall's the funniest Cape Darkie I've ever met."
"Cape Coloured, Finn. 'Darkie' isn't a nice word."
"Sorry, Miss. He is real funny though. Said he thinks war's a jolly lark and that you're really pretty."
"Shut your hole, Mertens." she cut in, mortified.
"Be nice, Marshall." the nurse admonished. "I'll be back with your lunch later, I hope you boys won't be any trouble until then."
"I was just saying." the boy shrugged as the nurse left their ward. "Just saying you was funny, is all."
She rolled over and ignored him again, staring at the wall and trying to ignore the constant burning in her leg too.
...
Days blurred into weeks in a haze of alcohol instead of pain killers, boric acid washing out the still healing hole in her leg and the somewhat unwelcome friendship of Private Mertens. She'd learned quickly not to make friends, it hurt more to see their brains blown out if she cared too much about them. Still, the boy was persistent and his childish chatter did take her mind off the agony in her leg.
"What's South Africa like then, Marshall?" he asked one day, when his fever was beginning to grow again and the swelling and throbbing in his head was bothering him worse than ever.
"Hotter than here. It's nice, I miss it. The food's better and the women are less uptight." she shrugged.
"I might have to come visit when this war's done, then. Might have to take you to Dublin too, show you around the old town. Irish women are pretty but nobody's prettier than Nurse Sugar. I'll ask her for an autumn wedding, my sister could do a lovely bouquet to match her hair. Why'd you want to come all the way to France to fight the Boche then?" he asked, eyes bright with fever.
"There was this girl." she replied with a heavy sigh. "And my father didn't approve. Well, he was on the warpath when he caught us together. I was going to be made homeless and disowned and all the rest of it, so I joined up with the army. Figured I'd get as far away from him as I could, be my own person. I wanted to see Europe. If I'd known that all I'd see would be a muddy stretch of Hell that they're trying to pretend is called France then I'd have stayed at home. My uncle could have put me up, I was always his favourite."
"You should go back and marry that girl." Finn nodded wisely. "We can have a joint wedding, you and your African girl and me and my nurse. Is she a dar- er, coloured, too?"
"Cape Coloured, Finn. Yeah, she was. Real nice girl, too nice to mess around with me. She's probably married someone else now anyway, I was always just something to pass the time with. Makes no difference, lad. I didn't love her."
"That's awful wicked, Marshall. My mother said it's the worst thing a gentleman can do, to dally with a woman's feelings. I bet she was fierce hurt when you left." the boy frowned. She just shrugged in reply, she'd long ago stopped wondering what had happened to Keila after they'd been discovered. Probably got married to the first man who'd have her, probably about ready to squeeze out the first of a brood by now.
They spent the rest of the afternoon quietly, Finn drafting out yet another letter to his mother detailing how wonderful Nurse Sugar was and 'Marshall' reading an old book of poetry the nurse had loaned her. She kept quiet whenever Finn talked about Nurse Sugar, unwilling to indulge his obsession and fantasy that they'd get married. Finn had already decided that Marshall would be his best man and they'd have the wedding in Dublin so he could show them around the best bars and sights of the old city. From what she could tell, Nurse Sugar regarded Finn as a sweet but silly boy.
That night as she lay down to sleep 'Marshall' stared up at the ceiling and listened to the increasingly laboured breathing of her friend. She was thinking back over all the events that had lead her there, thinking about Keila and the delicious, sinful things they'd done, about her father and the sting of his hard hand striking her across the face, telling her she was unnatural and no daughter of his. About cutting her hair off and stealing her brother's identification paperwork. Next thing she knew she was on a transport ship heading north with a troupe of other 'men', at least three of whom had been women just like her before they chose to disguise themselves and join up for whatever reason. She fell asleep with the taste of a woman's kiss on her lips, although it wasn't Keila she was thinking of anymore, hadn't been for weeks now.
When she opened her eyes the next morning there was a doctor pulling the sheets regretfully over Finn's face.
"Finn." she breathed, sitting up and staring. "No, he was going to get married, he told me. He wanted a scar, said the ladies loved a man with a scar."
"I'm sorry, son. The infection must have got him in the night. This whole damn hospital is coming down with it, he was lucky to hang on as long as he did. Get some rest, soldier. The nurse can let you know when his funeral will be." the doctor shook his head remorsefully and moved off, presumably to declare more injured men dead.
She stared at the shape in his bed that had been her friend as tears began to form in her eyes; he'd only just turned fifteen and he was so eager and bright, always happy no matter how ill he got. He was going to propose to the nurse any day, he'd sworn it for weeks. She lay back down in her bed and pulled the sheets over her own head, curling up around her pillow to hide the sounds of her grief. Boys didn't cry when their friends died in the night.
...
By the time her leg had healed enough to limp around on crutches she'd exhausted her grief about Private Mertens, said goodbye to him in the little chapel and asked God to judge his soul kindly because she didn't know what else to do. Asking for forgiveness seemed pointless when she didn't regret her actions and praying for its own sake wasn't something she'd ever cared for. Instead she spent hours talking with Nurse Sugar, making her laugh and watching the way the lamplight lit her eyes like a sunrise. It had been more than a month since she'd come into the hospital and the only bright spot in her existence came daily in a starched white and blue uniform and a voice like honey.
It happened in the store room, she hadn't been trying to catch the other woman alone but it was eventually unavoidable.
"Marshall. Oh, I'm sorry, were you looking for something?"
A voice from behind made her turn, painfully slow, still unsteady on her damaged leg.
"Nurse Sugar. Just, um, sorry. It hurt and I was going to try to find some pain killers." she replied guiltily, looking down in shame. There were plenty of men much more badly injured that her and they needed all the supplies they could get, she'd been acting selfishly.
The nurse closed the door and turned to look at her with a strange expression in her eyes. They were alone for the first time since they met.
"Women were created to bear pain. There's no reason you'd need the medicine more than anyone else here."
She looked up, mouth open in shock, then looked away in shame again.
"You think I didn't know?" the nurse continued with a small smile. "I stripped you and washed you when you were still unconscious. I've been covering for you this whole time."
"Why?" she managed to gasp out, around the horror of discovery making her vision tunnel in fear.
"Because you're brave, and you were hurt in the line of duty just like the men. Because I know the look of someone running away from their past when I see it. I see the same look in the mirror every morning."
She looked back around curiously. Nurse Sugar shook her head with a rueful smile.
"It was either this or being sent to a convent. I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to understand why the Lord created me this way, full of sin and shame. I can help here, I can give something of myself in service to men here the way I never could as a wife or someone's sweetheart. So I came to the war instead. And it was difficult but I felt better. And then you came along. What's your real name?"
"Marceline." she replied quietly. "Marceline Abadeer. I stole my brother's identification. My father was going to hurt me, I had to get away."
"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting anyone like you before, Marceline."
She couldn't have moved away even if she'd wanted to, her injured leg was throbbing from the exercise and she was rooted to the spot as the nurse swayed closer, leaning in and brushing their lips together with a sweet sigh.
"It's wicked sinful." Marcy managed to murmur around the dizzying intoxication of the other woman's kiss.
"Look around yourself, Marceline. Look at these men dying, shot to pieces, burned from the inside out with gas. Thousands drown in the mud or get cut to ribbons by the machine guns every single day, thousands of young men and women who'd never been away from home before and just wanted to help make a difference. They had hopes and dreams, families, people they loved. And now they're rotting in pieces out in no-man's-land. Tell me after everything you've seen on the front lines if God hasn't abandoned us, if an act of love in the middle of all this death and pain can really be sinful. What else could they do to us? We're already in Hell."
"But if we're caught-" Marcy began, unsure.
"Then I'll be sent to an insane asylum and you might face a firing squad, if they discover that we're both women. Just another type of confinement, like I've known my whole life. But right now we're free, here in this room together. Is that a risk you're willing to take? Or will you go back to being Marshall and staring at me with badly disguised longing every time I walk into the room to check your bandages?"
She leaned in and kissed the nurse softly in reply, unable to find the words to describe that the act of courage it took to do that was greater than when she'd scrambled over the top of their trench into a hail of German bullets with her comrades falling and dying at her shoulder. Because they were in Hell, and they might die any day. Because nothing that could happen to their eternal souls could be worse than the war they found themselves in the middle of, because when every hour was a precious gift then taking a little slice of Heaven in the middle of Hell was the only comfort they had. In another couple of weeks her leg would heal enough to fight again and she'd be back on the front line. And she wasn't stupid enough to believe that she'd survive with just minor injuries the second time, she was going from one Hell to another. So she kissed back and didn't resist the hands that slid all over her body, because if she was going to have a tiny taste of Heaven before she was killed then what a taste it would be.
When the order came down the line and the regrouped Third South African Battalion went back over the top, Lance Corporal Abadeer charged across no-man's land with her men into air thick with machine gun fire and explosions, screams and death. And she felt no fear of the bullets or of dying, she'd tasted Heaven and she'd lived through Hell. Perhaps she'd go to her grave a hero, perhaps she'd wake up back in the hospital. But she was a brave lad, fighting for her lady, fighting for a future where people like her could be free. That was worth risking Hell for.