10.
~ It was a long drive to the front. The convoy of Red Cross trucks bounced like a stage coach along the neglected roads out of Paris. Ariadne and the other nurses were jerked around the bottom of the truck bed as they watched Paris fall away from view.
Her body was starting to cramp up when the trucks squealed to a halt and reached the first check point into the advancement.
Shouting. That was the standard greeting in any army. Men shouting at them to unload. Get the doctors and nurses out now.
The back of the truck flew open and the Soldiers were helping the nurses down and unloading the supplies. Ariadne looked worriedly around her. She didn't see Arthur or his unit anywhere. She breathed a sigh of relief and then wished she hadn't.
The smell. That smell seemed to permeate the air. As a nurse she was used to all kinds of foul odors that stayed in her hair and clothing, but she had never smelled anything like this before. It was musty, old and powerful. It smelled of terrible things and her animal instinct told her to stay away from it.
"It's worse then we thought. Steel yourselves ladies. This is no time for fainting or any nonsense." The Doctor told them handing them toothpaste.
"What's this for?" Ariadne asked.
"For the smell." He said smearing a large dab on his finger and wiping on his upper lip. Giving himself a strange white mustache. "It will help. Now, put your masks on, and your gloves. I can tell you right now were dealing with typhoid and dysentery. Most likely lice and other things you don't want."
The nurses all smeared their upper lip with the toothpaste and pulled on their masks. Immediately the odors went away and was over ruled but the smell of the minty paste.
It had rained just before they arrived and the ground was muddy. Ariadne watched as U.S. Soldiers marched the dregs of the Nazi guards into a holding pen.
"We have over two dozen barracks to look over. I want you to asses only for now. Triage rules. Determine who needs help now, and who can wait. Our men are setting up a MASH unit for us." The Doctor said as Ariadne was escorted to a barrack by her own personal guard.
"How old are you, Solider?" She asked the young man who looked dwarfed by his army greens.
"19 ma'am." he said sheepishly. "Ma'am, I don't think a lady should go in there." he said.
"Nonsense." She told him. "Stay close to me, we will need to move them."
~ She wished later she had headed the young soldier's advice. In the dark foul smelling barracks, eyes looked up. Eyes that were hollowed and haunted as they blinked back at her. She was floored again by the smell. Despite the toothpaste, she could smell the tell tell odor of hunman waste and decomposing bodies.
"Are you an American?" A voice called out.
"Are we going home?" Another asked.
"Yes." She said numbly. "Yes, were all going home."
~ There was no going home for Ariadne just yet. She had to triage everyone. The young men who were walking and talking, the ones excited to see her were not a priority. She gave them bread and told them to wait. The men who were not so active caught her attention. These men laid back, unblinking and uncaring.
Her would be patients helped her carry these half gone souls to the MASH unit where the Doctor was checking them over. Her young Solider was throwing his breakfast up as she made him go back into the next barracks.
"Pull yourself together." She said efficiently. "We need you."
The poor young man was not ready for the next barrack. The horrific smells of humans living too close together and with too little sanitation was evident. Her clothing, hair and skin soon absorbed the rank odor of these men. All of them were captured just a few months ago. All of them, happy to see a Red Cross nurse. They helped her to carry the weaker men to the MASH tent. She handed these relatively healthy men bread and told them that the Americans had taken back Paris. That yes, Hitler was on the ropes.
The wounds for these men had once been minor, but in these horrible conditions, they had festered and now infection was taking over their bodies. Ariadne applied the last of her sulfa to a shoulder wound. One that had turned bright red and yellow. A wound that was now hot to the touch.
~ "Your a good nurse." Her young solider said as she walked quickly back to the truck.
"I am?" She said with a laugh. The young man helped her unload more medicine.
"Yeah, your not afraid to touch them." He said sheepishly.
"Once their cleaned up and feed properly, you would never know they were here." She told him.
She suddenly felt winded and tired.
"What time is it?" She asked him.
"Almost five." She said taking the heavy box from her.
"No wonder I'm hungry." She said with a laugh. "Let's get the last of these drugs to the Doctor and have some dinner." She told him.
"So... um, do you have a fellow?" The young Solider asked shyly. She smiled and felt her face go warm.
"Um, yes. I do. He's in the army." She told him.
"Oh." He said looking sad for a moment. "He knows your out here? Doing this?"
"Not really." She told him with a secret grin.
~ The line at the mess hall was long. The POW's taking priority as they waited for hot soup and fresh bread. Ariadne felt woozy at the sudden smell of clean, hot food. Her young Solider helped her deliver the medicine and the Doctor told her to take a break but be back as soon as she had eaten.
"Let's sit down a second." She said as her and the young Solider rested on a makeshift bench. She watched with a certain feel of accomplishment as the POW's filed into the mess hall.
"What's your name?" She asked the young man.
"Privet James Telford." He told her. His face looking weary and haunted.
"They tell you to baby sit me?" She asked trying to put him at ease.
"It's war Ma'am." He told her. "Things happen to women in war time. My orders came directly from the Captain himself."
"Which Captain?" She asked trying to not sound interested.
"Which Captain?" He repeated. "THE Captain. The Hero, the one who's getting the cross. The one who re-captured those Nazis that bombed the barracks last week."
"Oh." Was all Ariadne said. "He sounds like a good man." She said finally.
"The best." Privet Telford said.
There was so much shouting in the camp already that Ariadne didn't hear it right away. It had been a long time since her ears had been trained for the sound of planes. She didn't even hear the shouts of;
"Air Raid! Get Down!" before it was too late.
Privet James Telford, melted before her eyes. His warm blood splattering on her with the mud and meat that was once the wide eyed young man.
His blood was on her face as she numbly wiped it off her. Her mind reeling against what had just happened. Her guard, the young Solider, had been hit. His body blown away as if he never existed at all. The sound of the bomb that struck so close to her deafened her. Reducing her wold to shocked silence.
She saw but didn't hear men shouting. She saw the ground open up to the bombs that fell over the Red Cross stations. She felt the ground shake under her as an explosion quivered under her feet.
She walked around in a daze. Covered in mud and Privet Telford's sticky blood.
A sudden force knocked on her feet. Then, the demons of hell broke free of the earth, and escaped.
'A bomb hit too close to me.' She thought to herself as she felt nothing. She felt nothing at all as she sank into a black oblivion.