CONFLICT
19/03/66
Walker and I remained at the back of the shower room, scrubbing several lumps of dried dirt and mud off the tiles. Walker, likely having done this on multiple occasions for his previous squad, was washing out the dirt with minimal effort. It wasn't so simple for me, since I was usually the one who mopped the floor in the showers before Williams arrived for his inspection, but Baker insisted that Hafen take my place for that day.
I slapped my sponge onto the smooth, ceramic surface, before I applied as much pressure as I could. Slight pockets of dirt started to fly off the wall, only to be mopped away by an extremely disgruntled Hafen. Walker continued to rub his sponge onto the wall, cleaning away the scattered splatters of dirt with ease.
Tired and irritated by his task, Hafen approached Walker and tipped his shoulder with the mop. "Any chance you could take over for me, Anthony?"
"Nope," Walker replied, unmoved by Hafen's opprobrious muttering. "I can't."
"Come on, for god's sake. This is a pain in the ass. Besides, you're a criminal. You love this kind of shit."
"I told him not to, since I knew you were going to ask," I intervened, scowling at the trails of brown water left behind him. "You call that a mopping? Put some back into it, Private."
"Fucking prick," he whispered to himself, followed by some additional profanity that I didn't take the time to listen to. He walked back to the center of the room and continued to clean away a few more scraps of mud.
"Hard to believe we let it get this bad. It's worse than usual," I commented, applying some additional pressure on a streak of grass and mud that simply wouldn't come off at all. "Son of a bitch, this is tough work."
"You want some help, Corp?" Walker approached me with his trademark smile, one that wasn't quite as sickening as usual ever since he started maintaining some dental hygiene, but it was still quite a sight regardless.
"Yeah, sure," I said to him, avoiding eye contact with Hafen when he glanced in my direction right as Walker took over for me. I looked at Baker, who was conversing with another Sergeant at the doorway.
He turned towards us and clapped his hands. "Williams is outside! Pick up the pace, fellas!" He rolled his eyes at Hafen and took the mop from him, demonstrating how a proper cleaning should have been done, washing away the remains of the dirt effortlessly. "Use more water, Private. For god's sake, do you clean like this back at home? Your girlfriend must fucking hate you."
"All done," Walker yelled, much to my astonishment. He managed to polish away all specks of taint on the tiles within less than two minutes, which was something that would have taken an old crone like me over thirty minutes to do, and probably not nearly as efficiently at the same time. He strolled over to Baker, dragging his baggy combats across the wet floor.
"Well done, Anthony," Baker approved, patting his subordinate on the back. "A job well done, as always." They walked outside, ignoring the comparatively sleazy yet tough work that Hafen and I put in.
All of the squads on the premises gathered around the entrance right as Chalmers finished distracting Williams with some jargon with regards to our patrols, as well as eerily mentioning some upcoming modifications of our timetables, before the pair of them marched inside. We stood by the door and saluted as he entered, which was a practice that Williams demanded in order for him to maintain an image of authority over us, although we would usually shrug it off with some jokes about his middle name and his weight afterwards.
"I have to admit, Sergeant Major, that you and your men do a fantastic job of keeping this place up to scratch," Williams added, followed by indifferent change of tone. His eyes squinted. "Although, the smell isn't exactly what I was expecting."
"Is that so?" Chalmers exchanged a nasty look with a pair of Privates near the end of our row, who had presumably been tasked with the air fresheners that day, but had forgotten to carry out their task. "I'll see to it that something is done about the aromas around here, sir," he said, faking a smile.
Williams managed to slip in a rotten look at me when he walked by our squad. Maintaining my salute, and avoiding the impulse to strike his bloated face, wasn't a particularly simple task. "Margaret," I mumbled softly, followed by a chorus of mild tittering by a few nearby soldiers.
"That's enough," Chalmers growled at us, clearly trying to show off his aggressive leadership abilities in front of Williams. He turned and resumed walking towards the mess hall. Williams followed, his beer belly shaking as he moved his chunky legs.
A sergeant opposite us turned to one of his men. "Gerald, did you get those countertops cleaned?" To his relief, and that of most of the other men, the soldier nodded in response. We eventually broke away from the entrance, while a few lingered behind to provide some live commentary as Williams observed the canteen and the food stalls in the other room. Our squad, on the other hand, were completely satisfied with returning to our quarters for the afternoon. I didn't want to see another damn sponge for the rest of the day.
We made our way towards our bunkroom, dodging the dozen or so men that came our way, until one of the men forced us to delay our little trip. Paying no attention to the squads that passed by us, I walked on without registering the presence of one individual in particular, at least not until Walker decided to open his mouth.
"Hi Richie," Walker said politely. I turned my head to face the crowd to our left, which turned out to be Sergeant Monroe's squad. After identifying the commanding officer, I diverted my eyes to his left, feeling my bowels tingle as I laid my eyes down upon Clark. "How are you doing?"
Clark, surprisingly enough, had his bloodshot eyes locked onto me rather than Hafen. It was then that it hit me. I threatened to add another blemish to Clark's record, which was something I had never actually done, but it was clear that he didn't take my words too well. A diplomatic approach would have been fruitless, and it was just as well that I had come to that conclusion, since it wasn't long before Clark was charging at me.
The corridors of the base weren't very wide, so I didn't have much time to dodge. I lurched myself to the left as he threw himself towards me, forcing me to tumble over Hafen, who was equally as terrified as I was when we encountered him. Clark collided with Walker, knocking him to the ground with a sharp thump. Walker remained immobile when he landed, no doubt held down by the relatively heavy weight of the little man that had just charged into him. Even more angered than before, Clark scrambled to his feet promptly and jumped for me, swinging his fists at my face while I attempted to shield myself. As I raised my hands to deflect his punches, I threw my left leg out and struck him in the shin. Clark fell and roared in pain, stalling his attack to tend to the wound on his leg, while I used the opportunity to stand up.
"That's enough!" Baker stepped forward and grabbed Clark by his collar and hoisted him up, who was still moaning from the injury he sustained. He continued to glower at me as I helped up Hafen, biting down on his lower lip to control whatever anger he could. "I've had enough of your bullshit," Baker barked, throwing him against the concrete wall. Clark tumbled to the ground once again, before he decided to give up whatever fight he had left in him and resumed nursing his leg.
"Get your hands off him," Sergeant Monroe bellowed, pushing Baker back with all the strength he could muster, but only managed to move the towering behemoth back a mere couple of centimeters. "He's my Corporal and he's my responsibility! Back the fuck off!" Monroe's other squad mates backed up against the wall, having no intention of getting involved.
Baker remained silent, yet unnervingly calm, staring at Monroe as he raised his fists. "Responsibility? I had more control over him when he was with me," Baker stated, before he grabbed Monroe's arm and grappled it, forcing him down to his knees. Monroe attempted to break free, before Baker tightened his grip on his arm, causing the veins in the restrained limb to pop out. It wasn't long before he ceded.
"Alright, I give in! Just let me fucking go," Monroe whined, much to the embarassment of his surbordinates, who had started to edge away from the line of sight of the other men. I couldn't blame them to be honest. Seeing your CO get his ass handed to him so quickly couldn't have been something to brag about, especially when the other squads in the hall looked on in shock and disgust.
A man of my height stepped forward from the crowd of men observing the conflict, bearing the insignia of a sergeant on his uniform. "Do you want me to call Chalmers?"
Baker looked back at me while I was busy trying to keep Hafen calm. The curious look in his eyes indicated that he was seeking my opinion, causing me to pause for a moment. Getting Monroe and Clark thrown in the sewers would have really brightened up my day. However, Williams' presence would have created complications, which would have forced the overweight bastard to stay for longer than he needed to, but this was something that Baker clearly wasn't considering. I shook my head and mouthed Williams' name, and it didn't take long for Baker to acknowledge the point I was trying to discreetly make.
"Don't worry about it, Sergeant," Baker responded with a faint smile. "Just escort Monroe and his squad back to their quarters."
The sergeant nodded and called out to his men, who proceeded to surround Clark and Monroe. The other men in Monroe's squad eventually joined up with their commander and strolled back to their quarters in shame, but not before Clark managed to twist his reddened head back in our direction. His furrowed eyebrows didn't do much to put us at ease, and it was clear that my retaliation wouldn't have done me any good if Baker didn't intervene when he did.
"You guys alright?" Baker approached us, rubbing his bare right forearm. "He hurt you?"
"Peter fucking did anyway," Hafen groaned, shoving me away from him as I tried to hold him back. "That fucking hurt, you asshole!"
"Alright, that's enough," Baker said, separating Hafen from me. "At least no one was badly injured." He glanced at his wristwatch, scratching the outline left by Monroe's fingers. "Let's head back to the bunkroom."
"You okay, Corp?" Walker approached me as Baker and Hafen made their way through the hallway. "He nearly got you there," he grinned, emotionally unaffected by the conflict.
I rubbed my forehead, flinching at the pain as my fingers caressed the spot Clark had managed to hit when he grounded me. "Anthony, could you do me favor?"
Walker looked on at me in confusion, but managed a cheerful nod regardless. "Sure thing, Corp."
I looked at him and frowned. "Would you mind keeping your mouth closed from now on?"
25/03/66
"I wonder if they realize that shit is bad for them," I coughed, continuing to splutter as another wave of stale smoke enveloped the area. We were waiting outside the convenience store while Walker went inside to fetch us something to eat, since standing by in the town for the entire day left us fairly hungry, thanks to yet another timetable modification.
"Assuming they're old enough to be smoking them," Baker added, oddly not at all bothered by the stench. I took another good look at the two men beside us, who were puffing away at their cigarettes, right before the one on the right reached into his pocket to fetch more. "Hey, go smoke that shit somewhere else!"
I couldn't tell what they were most intimidated by, be it Baker's physique, or the gleaming M16 that he had Walker clean earlier that day. Either way, the two young fellows scampered away from us without any pause for thought. "Thank fuck," I gasped, glancing at the rapidly evaporating trails of smoke in the air. I turned my eyes towards the glass window we were resting against, strugging to make out Walker among the several stalls of food inside the store. "He's taking his bloody time," I remarked, fumbling my fingers on the thin window frame.
"Here he comes," Baker added, visibly joyful over the concept of being fed. I diverted my eyes towards the left side of the room, grinning at Walker as he surfaced from one of the stalls, before I immediately turned away as he attempted to return the favor with an unnaturally broad smile.
"Here's some fresh fruit," Walker said. He handed Baker the brown paper bag he was carrying, before he proceeded to shuffle through the contents.
"Fruit?" Hafen approached us, having finally decided to come out of the alley he had spent the last ten minutes fidgeting around in. "Sarge asked for sandwiches, not fucking fruit."
"That's right," Baker sighed. He gripped one of the dark red apples resting in the bag and lifted it out. He shot a disgruntled look at me, singling me out over the other men. "Let me guess..."
"We need to start eating healthier," I said, much to the chagrin of my fellow troopers, with the notable exception of Walker who had remained as obedient as ever. "We eat far too much gloop nowadays." Not that I took much time to eat any of the aformentioned gloop that we were fed at the base. I only ate breakfast at the base on a daily basis, and I usually preferred to fix up my own meals. I would most definitely eat the canteen food on the occasion that something edible was served, but I typically preferred my own culinary skills over the generic, dry lumps of chicken and potatoes that we were fed almost every day.
"Is this all because of Clark?" Baker shook his head at me as I confirmed his suggestion. "Eating fruit won't make you any stronger or faster." Although the health section in the local newspaper suggested otherwise.
"It might stop the fucking diarrhea," Hafen grumbled, a remark that would have been one of the few genuinely hilarious things he had ever said, had it not been for the serious tone he sported every time he spoke. He turned to us and frowned. "Do we have to talk about Clark? Right now? He's the only thing we've been bitching about over the last week."
Baker, for once, agreed with him. "I've had enough of hearing about him." He tightened his grip on the apple, before raising it to his mouth and tearing a lump out of it with his canines. "I've also had enough of eating sandwiches all day. So this will have to do." He opened the bag and handed us our lunch, which we decided to tuck into during our trek back to the base. Just as well that we did, since I doubted any of the nearby civilians would have liked to experience Baker's harrowing table manners for themselves.
"You didn't say anything to them about John Doe, did you?"
Baker kicked a lump of dirt off the road as he paused to listen to my question. "No. The passive bastards didn't even ask me about it," he chortled.
"Right. Well, be sure to keep mum about it," I suggested. "I'm sure you're aware of how generous you can be with information like that."
"You can be loud enough yourself," he replied, losing the sense of humor he initially displayed. Granted, it was my sheer display of carelessness that had almost cost us our next plane home, but even that paled in comparison to how simple it was to get important knowledge out of Baker. "I also expect you to keep quiet about it from now on."
"Of course," I muttered, trying to ignore the guilt that continued to creep through my mind. "It won't happen again." I looked back at Hafen and Walker, who trailed behind us by a few metres, but they clearly weren't paying any attention to what we were saying. Hafen, as you'd expect, was looking away from Walker, gazing at the forest surrounding the town. Anthony on the other hand held his rifle with a display of pride that reminded me of Fisher whenever he got the opportunity to shoot his weapon, minus the bouts of guilt he experienced whenever he shot a friendly. I nodded my head at him. "He's as care free as ever."
"If we had an army of men like him, we'd have taken Vietnam the moment we walked in there," Baker joked. Walker was far more careful with his guns than Fisher was, always taking regular breaks to ensure that they were in an acceptable condition, becoming cranky whenever he found any traces of dirt or scratches on them. He always had a broad grin slapped onto his face whenever we went out on our patrols, and I always easily detected the strong sense of disappointment he felt whenever we had to leave our guns back in their respective lockers.
We sat at one of the tables in the mess hall, enjoying what was left of our fruit. Hafen and I exchanged the occasional glance with Sergeant Monroe at the other end of the hall. Clark sat next to him, supposedly unaware of our presence in the room, since I doubted that he would have had the mental capacity necessary to ignore us without losing his mind. "Fucking asshole," Hafen muttered, looking right at Clark. "Wouldn't mind getting a kick at him myself."
"I did that because I had to," I warned him. "It doesn't mean that you can do it for the hell of it." I threw the chewed up remains of my apple into the paper bag resting on the table, before Walker grinned at me and grabbed the bag.
"I'll put this away," he said, before sprinting to the canteen.
I leaned in on the table and lowered my voice. "Just before he comes back, I just want to say this to you guys." Baker looked at me, pulling his index finger for some strange reason. Hafen remained tucked away in his seat, but I could tell that he was listening.
"Go ahead," Baker smiled.
"I'm only saying this behind Anthony's back because..." I paused for a moment to come up with a simple way of describing my feelings. "... I don't think he needs to know about what happened last year."
Hafen rolled his eyes and looked away. "More shit about Fisher?"
"Just listen to me for a minute," I snapped, before lowering my voice once I realized how loud I was speaking. "I've just been thinking that we should try to get in contact with him."
"You've tried that numerous times," Baker scoffed. "You run up to his home, and eventually back out at the last moment." He leaned forward and folded his rock hard arms on the table. "What makes you think that it'll be any different this time?"
"At least I care enough to try, sir." The fumbled look on his face indicated how he felt about that.
"We have too important a job to be worrying about Fisher all the time." He picked at his orange goatee, which had started to grow over the bottom of his chin at that point.
"So having one conversation with our old colleague is too much to ask?" Baker lowered his hand and rested it on his elbow, considering what I had said. I turned to Hafen. "Mark. You and Fisher were good buddies. Usually." Mainly when he got his hands on the next issue of Playboy. Other than that, Fisher was just as prone to irritating Hafen as we were. "Don't you want to see him?"
"I do," he amazingly admitted. He spoke in the same bland tone that he was known for, but his honesty was still commendable. He fiddled with the sleeves of his shirt and bit his lip. "But what are we supposed to say to him? 'Hey buddy. Sorry we spied on your wife and took your kid for research. Can we be friends again?'" He rolled his eyes and looked away.
"Right." As offensive as his sarcasm was, he did raise a solid point. One that even Baker was willing to add to.
"You saw how he reacted, Johnson. He was ready to rip your throat out." He nodded his head at Monroe behind him, revealing a few stray gray hairs dangling from his fringe. "We have enough shit to deal with, other than pissing off Fisher again."
Fisher's thin, blood red face flashed through my mind. I remembered the grip he had on me as he confronted me at the field hospital all those months ago, and it wasn't something that I was very grateful to think about. Hell, he even threw a fit in front of Baker, something that only the very brave or mentally impaired would have even dared to do. It was something that caused me to grit my teeth, since the transition from a clumsy and easygoing man to a psyhcopathic, violent beast was too much to take in all at once. I blinked my eyes and shook my head. "So you don't care then?"
"Of course we fucking care. We just have to take things at face value," he stated, prodding his finger on the table. "And those things are that we have a village and research site to protect. It's what we were brought here to do. We'll deal with Fisher when we get the chance."
I bowed my head. "Or in your case, until we're ordered to."
Baker sighed slowly and heavily, before throwing himself further back into his seat. "I give up."
"So do I," I mumbled to myself.
We departed for our quarters as soon as Walker returned, and we kept our promise to keep mum about it. Walker knew about Fisher and all of the things he had in common with him, but we dared not tell him about what happened back in August. Not that Walker would have thought anything of it, considering his phlegmatic nature, but the last thing we needed was other men finding out about it. Even if we told him to keep his mouth shut, all it would have taken was a bit of nudging by Monroe or Clark and he would have spilled the beans without hesitation.
14/04/66
I could feel the sweat trickling down my forehead as I approached the corner I swerved by all those months ago, before screeching back with a badly bloodied woman adjacent to me. This was not the first time I attempted to approach my old friend's home. I retraced my footsteps at almost every patrol we had in the town, before my stomach dropped to the lowest part of me once the badly maintained red brick home came into my field of view, forcing me to hold on to my rifle as tightly as possible and rapidly flee in the opposite direction. I also made some additional attempts during my free time, when I wasn't resting or looking for something to eat, but they ended up with more or less the same outcome.
"Fuck this," I moaned to myself as I forced myself forwards. I peered around the aforementioned corner, my hands trembling and my breathing gaining pace. The house was easy to identify over the dozens of others in the area, and I spotted the old timer who I met whilst trying to get Anne out of the house when she was due to drop the kid. He was sitting on a wooden chair, observing his front lawn, and I could feel my eyes roll at the recollection of the man's nosy behavior back then. Little did I know that at the time, I was probably worse.
I shook my head, refusing to bring myself any further. On a few occasions I managed to walk to his front gate, before the inevitable bouts of nausea caused me to sprint out of the vicinity. "You can do this, Peter," I thought. "You can do this." I was never one for reassuring myself, usually preferring to have others do it for me, but my attempts to calm myself seemed to have worked to an extent. I brought myself around the corner, and slowly crossed the road to approach his home. Just another twenty or so metres was all that stood between me and my old comrade. I swallowed my doubts and moved on a little faster.
Then the impossible happened, something that never occurred during the thirty to forty times I tried to reconcile with Eddie. The front door opened slowly, and a short, shoddily dressed woman walked out. My heart stopped, my breath stilled and my eyes widened. Without even thinking, I turned and ran as fast as my legs could allow me to. I jerked myself around the corner, almost tripping over the fencing of a nearby home, before hiding behind the oak tree overlooking the pavement.
My heart was racing, almost to the point of where I considered that cardiac arrest was a possibility at that time, so I tried to maintain a series of deep breaths. I looked around the tree, identifying the woman who nearly caused my bladder to explode in terror. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, Anne Fisher. She was fairly plump, although not to the point of where she was obese. She had a perfectly round face, covered with short brown hair, while the slight layers of fat on her triceps jiggled as she carried a basket filled with clothes. Amazingly enough, she didn't seem to have acknowledged my presence, despite that I was sure that I had made a fair ruckus while I was making a run for it.
I rubbed the sweat from my brow, peeling away some dry skin in the process, before I realized something. I reached my hand around my jacket, losing all sense of reality once I noted the absence of the sling I used to hold my weapon for me. I glanced at the pavement outside her front gate, my hands trembling as my eyes gazed upon it. "I dropped my fucking gun." I cursed myself for forgetting to keep the sling on me. Keeping tabs on your gun at all times was one of the most important regulations that were forced upon us in Hope. We had treat the things like they were our young. Breaking or losing one, without a damn good reason to follow it up with, warranted several weeks in the can and even more in the sewers. Getting shot for smuggling information or conspiring against the research personnel was something that rarely crossed my mind, but I could feel my face becoming saturated with sweat when the fact that I had left my damn weapon in the middle of a street dawned on me. Weeks in solitary confinement sounded worse than a bullet to the head at the time, and it was something that I wasn't willing to try out.
I didn't want to face Anne, much less Eddie, but I wasn't left with much of a choice. Weeks without my squad or a call from my wife would have driven me insane. My mind was set, but my body wasn't. My knees trembled in an effort to get my feet to move, and the sensation was nothing short of sickening. It seemed so far away, even though it was less than a twenty second walk. The distance between the gun and I seemed to stretch the longer I laid my eyes on it. "Shit," I mumbled. I looked around to ensure that I wasn't being watched, before I swallowed and wiped away another few trails of sweat. Left with no other choice, I had to bring myself up that same street for the second time in a single day. I made my way out of my makeshift refuge and proceeded across the road. Anne was hanging out a batch of laundry, taking advantage of the relatively decent weather, but I was more relieved by the fact that she hadn't noticed me as I closed in on her residence. I kept my eyes on her, breaking my gaze only momentarily to deduce the distance between my gun and I. For what was supposed to have been a short trek along the pavement felt more like one of the obstacle courses I had been subject to during the early stages of my career.
"Peter?" My face turned white as her soft voice tickled my eardrums. Even from a distance she was completely audible. "Is that you?" I blinked, gazing at my hand as it reached out for the weapon that had been carelessly discarded on the pavement, only for my limb to vibrate violently as I wondered whether or not I should have grabbed it and made a run for it. Within a fraction of a second, the trembling motion had spread through my entire body, and I was left hoping that it wasn't noticeable from the ten or so meter distance between us. I looked up, freezing on the spot as I caught her walking towards me.
"Anne," I nodded nervously, more out of impulse than sheer politeness. I crouched lower and threw the sling over my head and fastened it, ignoring the fact that the butt of my rifle had nearly knocked out my front teeth as I put it on. Regardless, the last thing I needed was to lose it again. "Been a while, huh?"
As I expected, Anne was clearly unnerved by my presence. She didn't appear to have been angry, but rather more concerned at that fact that the man who indirectly caused her husband to lose his beloved job was standing right before her. "Yeah," she replied quietly.
An eerie silence followed. I gazed at the shirts and blouses on her clothes line as they moved in sync with the wind blowing in our general direction. There was nothing particularly interesting about the clothing in question, aside from the fact that they gave me something to look at until one of us broke the silence. After a moment or two, I risked a glance at her, feeling my internal organs ripple with discomfort as she shyly gazed at the pavement beneath her. It was up to me to say something, and I wasn't looking forward to doing so. "How have you been?"
She looked up at me. "Oh, just fine." She looked back at her lawn. "Just hanging out a few wet clothes before any rain comes."
"I see." I looked around me for some inspiration to keep the conversation flowing. "I see your house is looking as natural as ever."
She looked at the abundance of overgrowth on the worn brickwork of her house and grinned. "It's the way I like it," she replied in a slightly more appreciating tone. Despite my attempts at light-hearted conversation, the awkward pauses persisted, and it didn't take long before she started looking disheartened again. "Hey Peter."
I looked back at her, feeling my fingers twitch as she spoke. "Yes?"
Her mouth moved slowly, letting a few drips of saliva dangle from the roof of her mouth. She looked at me shyly, stroking her wrist. "Are you here to see Eddie?"
I didn't delay in denying it. "I was just patrolling the town," I replied. I wanted to kick myself for speaking in such a nervous manner. "And I...well, I just happened to be in the area."
"Then what about the gun?" Her innocent voice left my stomach hanging by a mere thread.
"Ah, you catch on quickly," I replied, resisting the urge to gargle up my breakfast. I gripped my rifle and held it up, taking a second to ensure that it was fastened correctly. "I dropped it while I was passing by, and it took me a while to realize that I forgot it," I chuckled lightly, but my extremely fake laughter didn't appear to convince her.
"I see," she muttered, pulling at the strings of her apron. It was all too clear from her nervous body language that my presence was making her feel uncomfortable, which gave me a more than plausible reason to get the hell out of there.
"Anyways, I can't keep the rest of my squad waiting." I demanded a bathroom break in the middle of our patrol, which left Baker and the other men waiting in the town square. I was gone for a great deal longer than I intended, so the quicker I got back, the less likely Baker was going to snap at me when I returned. The last thing I wanted was to end the afternoon with several pools of spit being shot at my face by an angry Irish man.
"I understand," she nodded. She continued to fiddle with her clothing for another moment before she turned and made her way back to her front lawn. I heaved a sharp sigh of relief, only to have to take it back in when she turned to face me again. "I'll be sure to tell Eddie you stopped by," she smiled, before she slowly trotted back home.
15/04/66
"Why the hell did you run?" Hafen's heightened tone of voice nearly forced me off my seat in fright.
"Keep it down," I said. I looked around for any eavesdroppers, having adapted to Baker's subconscious habit that kicked in whenever he was telling me something of importance several months beforehand. Hafen looked at me and rolled his eyes in disapproval. He went back to scanning through his Playboy magazine, which he purchased after his last issue was torn up by Baker. I dragged the pornography away from him and pouted. "Look, what did you expect me to do? Fucking march on in there, acting like we're best friends again?"
"You seemed pretty eager to march on in there a few weeks ago," he replied, before getting a tight grasp of the pages of his magazine and pulling it back towards him.
"Well, why don't you mosey on down there and try marching in yourself?" My efforts at coercing a response from him was in vain, since he was back to admiring the poster girl of that month's Playboy once again. "Look, just make sure you say nothing to Baker."
"I already promised you that I wouldn't," he groaned, before widening his eyes at a blonde model hiding behind a paragraph of white text right as he turned the pages.
I raised my finger at him. "Especially not to Anthony. His mouth is just as big as Baker's, if not bigger."
"Alright, alright." However, given his usual distrust of Walker, I really didn't have much to worry about. He resumed gawking over the scantily dressed women, while I enjoyed a nice, warm cup of tea.
"Hey fellas!" Killian's unexpected arrival cost me several drops of my tea, as well as my newly washed combats.
"Sergeant," I nodded politely, eagerly trying to wipe away the hot liquid, only to end up washing it deeper into the fabric. "What's up?"
"You see the memo yet?" Killian was tapping his feet wildly.
"What memo?" My question even managed to catch Hafen's attention, although he still threw an occasional glance at his magazine as we spoke.
"The memo on the door over there." He pointed to the front door, which had an A4 sheet of paper crudely taped to it. "Didn't think you'd miss it," he grinned, rubbing his hands together.
"We aren't on patrol until lunch," I added. "Maybe that's why I missed it." Baker and Walker slept in for the morning and weren't showing any signs of awakening for quite a while, and Hafen's habitual ignorance meant that either he didn't notice the memo, or had noticed and merely didn't think to tell me of it. "What's on it?"
"A new hospital is being built in town, apparently." For some reason, he seemed to be fairly pumped by the announcement. Although it only really meant one thing, and it was something I wasn't very adamant to celebrate about.
"I see," I replied, faking my surprise as best as I could. "I wonder what it's for?"
"What the fuck do you think? Hospitals are for, you know, taking care of the sick and shit," Hafen sneered over the pages of his magazine.
"Yeah, and in a town like this, they're also for cutting up newborn kids," I retorted, before shrinking into my seat after realizing that I was speaking in a much louder manner than I initially intended. "...and shit."
"Anyways," Killian continued. "I'll leave you to enjoy your breakfast, and your little session over there." He grinned at Hafen, who responded with mere shake of his head.
I waited until Killian was out of earshot and had reunited with his squad, before I turned to Hafen. "A new hospital?" I shrugged, looking around for more eavesdroppers. "Why do they need another one? Isn't the other one big enough as it is?"
"I don't know." Hafen wasn't liking the idea of hardening himself and conversing at the same time. "Just ask Higgins or something."
"Yeah." Although it would have been hard to do so without pissing off Baker and costing ourselves our next trip home. I took another sip from my tea. "Any hot babes in that?"
Hafen nodded sagely and gave one of the few genuine grins he had ever shown in public. "Oh yeah. There are."
I decided to throw away what little potential there was for prolonging our conversation, and decided to check out this new hospital the moment construction had started.
22/04/66
We weren't waiting for long before the foundations of the new structure had started to mark their presence on the construction site. It appeared that the civilians had already made some decent progress. However, despite how obvious it already was that a new hospital was en route, and what its function was going to be, Williams had called upon us for another conference meeting.
I was relieved at the fact that Hafen remained quiet about our little conversation about Fisher. While Baker knew that I had made several attempts to contact Fisher, being caught doing so in the middle of a patrol would have pissed him off to no end. I reminded him of it as we entered the conference building, but he merely just told me to quit banging on about it, albeit with a great deal of profanity to go alongside it.
We sat down in the usual spot. I scanned the troops around me and found no sign of Sergeant Monroe. I assumed that Clark was still banned from the meetings following our encounter in January, and that Monroe was probably on a patrol on that point.
It was usual hassle that started off these delightful meetings we had. Nigh on one hundred men were present, blabbering away and filling the expanse of the conference hall with the intermittent sounds of laughter and casual banter. Baker and I did the usual and poked a bit of fun at Hafen while we waited, which helped blot out the blind hope that Higgins would have talked a bit about the virus that day. Baker was quick to disagree with me when I brought it up, and I figured that he was right.
"Attention!" The crowd turned to face Williams, who was standing at the podium. "Let's try and make this as quick as possible. I don't want to waste anyone's time over these here meetings."
"Does that go for the other meetings we've been at?" My remark incited a quiet chuckle from Baker and Walker, although I suspected that Walker didn't fully understand what I was referring to judging by how forced his laughter sounded.
"Let's find out," Baker added.
"Alright then." Williams set his hands down on the crude wooden surface of the podium and cleared his throat. I immediately realized that it was he who was going to be hosting this meeting, and I suddenly found everything outside the window to my right a great deal more fascinating. I caught the eye of a mildly attractive woman standing across the street, before she turned away and resumed walking on with her friends. I sighed and crossed my arms, and it wasn't long before the men around me were doing the same thing. "As you all may know, we have a new hospital being built right next to Lloyd's supermarket. Since most of you frequent that area on your patrols, I doubt you will have any problem finding it."
"I wonder how big this hospital is going to be?"
Baker leaned in towards me. "Just about big enough for their experiments," he whispered.
I grinned at him. "You reckon it's going to be another virus hunting ground?"
Baker responded with a nod, before looking back up at the top of the room.
"We're hoping to have the premises fully fitted and ready to serve the local populace within six months," Williams continued. He paused for a moment to allow Chalmers to quieten a few troublemakers near the back of the room, before he decided to resume. "Which brings to me to my next point."
I leaned forward, hopeful for a few helpings of information about the virus. I looked at Baker for approval, but he remained impassive about the matter, immediately indicating that I was going to be disappointed.
"Due to a shortage of manual labour, and since I don't have permission to bring in anyone else from outside the town, we may have to modify a few timetables..." Williams was immediately cut off by the rumbustious groans of the disgruntled troops in the hall. It took a solid twenty or so seconds before the noise was lowered to an acceptable level, and the commanding officers had a hard time keeping it that way for the remainder of the meeting. I was used to the constant modifications at that point, Walker was too oblivious to put up an argument, and Hafen merely muttered a few curses before he shrugged it off as another inconvenience that didn't really concern him that much. As a result, Baker was left relatively stress-free during the ruckus. "As I was saying," Williams continued, left reddened by his efforts to calm the crowd. "Unfortunately, we have to change a few of your schedules to accommodate some assistance for the people in this town." He raised his hands. "Now I know that construction work isn't exactly your forte, but we all have to pitch in. We need this hospital, and your duty is to serve this town accordingly."
Hands started raising throughout the room. Chalmers stepped forward, stomping his bulky boots for added effect. "You can ask questions once the Lieutenant Colonel is finished." A show of hands still remained in the air, despite mutters from their commanding officers to desist. "Put your hands down! Now!" The bellow echoed throughout the hallway, leaving a rather uncomfortable sensation in my bowels, right before the stubborn troops agreed unanimously and lowered their hands.
"Thank you, Sergeant Major," Williams nodded, right as Chalmers retreated to the back of the room. "The foremen on the site will direct you during your assignments. I implore that you listen to them, since they're the ones with the expertise and knowledge." Williams scanned the middle of the room cautiously. "This new building is important, so slacking off won't be accepted. Nor will any carelessness. Squads who display any sign of incompetence will be dealt with swiftly."
"A bit of time in the sewers," I muttered, throwing my eyes at Walker. As I should have expected, he merely looked back at me in confusion.
"Now, we can't have any gaps in our security. The town and checkpoints need to be monitored, as always." Williams forced a smile, one that failed to lighten up the hundred or so men glaring at him. "So, not every squad will be subject to time on the construction site."
26/04/66
I should have known better than to have gotten my hopes up. Even a full afternoon at a gate checkpoint consisting of making sure that Hafen remained at his post at all times while trying to prevent any friendly fire incidents, (none of which ever actually occurred since Walker was usually very careful with his firearms) would have been preferable to this.
Construction workers ran to and fro in front of us, while we carried bags of cement towards the foreman. The man nodded at us and pointed at the pile of bags behind the mixer. We laid our heavy loads down on the pile, while Walker and Hafen had to pause for a breather. Baker trailed behind us and eventually arrived with his share of the load. "Sorry I'm late," he announced smugly, with two bags slumped over his shoulders. However, given that I already knew that he practically grew up working on construction sites, I had little reason to marvel at his strength. In contrast, I spent most of my childhood gambling with my uncle, and Baker's crushing defeats during our poker games was proof of that.
I looked at the crane towering over us. It was a great deal smaller than the ones I've seen in Tallahassee, but it was still at a height that would have left me reaching for the nearest non-rigid object to regurgitate that morning's breakfast into.
"I've seen bigger," Baker added, much to the foreman's disapproval.
"Seeing as you're from the east, I'm not surprised," I added. The crane's relatively short height was an indication that the hospital wasn't going to be very large, so I thought that perhaps this hospital was indeed going to be used only for the civilians. Unless some sort of extension was going to be applied at a later date, which was a possibility that was worth considering. Ideas for the hospital's real purpose kept lashing through my mind, making it hard to for me to concentrate on my work, at least until a quick snap of Baker's fingers brought me out of my daze.
"Listen," he ordered.
I looked up at the foreman who was giving more tasks for us and the other squad, who I recalled to be under the command of Sergeant Joe Rivera. The men gazed at the foreman, who spoke with a nasally southern accent. Whether or not they were listening to what was being said was beyond me, since my thoughts were still lingering at the time.
"Alright then," the foreman concluded with a clap. "Get to it. The quicker you get it done, the quicker you guys can get out here." The row of heads in front of him nodded in response, before making their way towards the other side of the site. Our squad followed their trail, in spite of the fact that I was left completely clueless as to what we were supposed to be doing.
"The fuck are those assholes doing?" Hafen pointed at a pair of construction workers who were resting on a slab of concrete, before shying away when they glared back at him. "Lazy little pricks," he muttered.
"Recommend you keep your mouth shut," Baker stated. "Like the foreman said. The quicker we go about this, the sooner we can go home."
We spent the next two hours helping the construction workers with some of the most mundane tasks in existence. Bringing them water, helping them set up scaffolds and giving them a hand with mixing the cement. The fact that we couldn't resort to letting Walker do the work for us was even more unfortunate. Rivera's squad spent the bulk of their time doing the more interesting work, which involved pouring the concrete into place and smoothing it out. It didn't seem like a whole lot of fun either, but it certainly beat having to carry shit around the place constantly.
Strangely enough, I felt somewhat relieved at the end of our work. Not because of the fact that we were finally allowed to leave, but mainly because the establishment was coming along at a decent pace. The late afternoon sun shone brightly over the slabs of wet concrete that we helped to form, and I felt a little revitalized at the sight of it. Thankfully, all it took was a warm cup of tea and a bit of Hafen's habitual whining to turn me back into the cynical and curious little man that I was.
A few sandwiches and the aforementioned beverage were all too welcome once we arrived back on familiar ground. Baker sat next to me loudly mocking the poor physical conditions of several of the construction workers, while Hafen and Walker quietly remained in their seats. Hafen was, as you'd expect at that stage, admiring the contents of his latest pornographic magazine.
"Could do with a piss," Hafen announced awkwardly, laying his beloved magazine down on the table. He pointed at Walker and frowned. "Don't touch it."
"No problem, Mark," Walker replied, followed by another of his distinctive toothy grins. As if Walker had enough sense to sneak a peek at an issue of Playboy, though I found myself shaking my head at how Hafen still perceived Walker as a hooligan. I failed to understand how someone who spent the last few months fetching our food and laundry for us, and who was also under the false pretense that he was serving his nation, could have been a criminal.
I turned back to face Baker and Allan, who were still exchanging jokes about the construction workers. Trying to get their attention over Allan's rowdy laughter was fruitless, until a quick tap of my mug on the wooden surface of the table caught Baker's eye. "What do you guys think of the new hospital?"
Still giggling from a joke he just told, Allan's lip quivered expeditiously as he tried to speak. "Not bad so far," he mumbled.
"Assuming they don't eat it all before they're finished," Baker sneered, which sent Allan into another frenzy of uncontrollable laughter. At least it was nice to know that he was easily entertained, although I couldn't discern whether or not that was a good thing once I caught O' Mara rolling his eyes at his commanding officer's merriment.
"No seriously," I insisted. "What do you guys think so far?"
"Decent progress," Jason said, although he quickly returned to his lunch after Allan burst into another phase of humor.
"You think it's going to be used for anything...," I paused for a moment, but I feared that delaying any further would have given Baker a chance to make another joke. "...unethical?"
Having finally decided to give the irritating bouts of laughter a rest for the moment, Allan rested his elbows on the table and looked at me. "I wouldn't exactly say a lot of the stuff going on behind the scenes would be ethical, kiddo."
"Ethics is all he ever talks about," Baker interrupted. "Sometimes I wonder if he even knows what he signed up for."
"I'm pretty sure I read the registration form before I signed it, Sarge." Which I did. I was very much aware of what was going to be happening in the town while I was serving, which explains why I was so relieved when I managed to sign up without getting my family involved. Judging by the obliviousness and passiveness exhibited by everybody else, it's quite likely that the rest of the men didn't read a single line of text on the contract. Or maybe my head was really far up my ass at the time, I'm finding it hard to remember right now.
"Why are you so bugged up by the whole virus thing, Johnson?" Killian tilted his head at me in confusion, raising his eyebrows in a curious manner. "Hm?"
"Because it's disgusting," I replied sternly. It wouldn't have taken a genius to have figured that out, but I was starting to wonder if Sergeant Allan was really as smart as he looked.
"But we weren't injected," he said with a crooked smile, as if that was a good thing. "Only the townspeople were."
Baker, as interrupting as ever, decided to cut in. "He doesn't like the idea of people being guinea pigs for the government." He took a quick swig of his coffee. "Or some shit like that."
Allan looked at me and shrugged. "My wife had no problem with being injected." His lips curled into a broad smile, one that still sickens me to this day. "It puts food on the table, and it keeps the country going."
'Ridiculous' was the only word that I could have used to describe the dribble that was coming out of this man's mouth. "And what about this hospital then?" I raised my head and glared into his eyes. "I mean, we've heard enough about newborn children, accelerated growth rates..."
"Night vision," Baker added. Had he decided to maintain some eye contact instead of simply staring at his empty mug, I may have thanked him for the reminder.
"Yeah." I looked back at Allan, whose smile had faded at that point. However, the look on his face was highly reminiscent of my uncle whenever he had one too many cocktails. Completely and utterly absent-minded. "You understand what I'm getting at?"
He blinked a few times, flinching for a second. "Oh! Uh, yeah," he stammered.
"Now this hospital is here, although we have another one just outside the town." I shrugged at him, but he didn't feel compelled to respond. "Doesn't that worry you?"
"No, I can't say that it does," he beamed, much to my surprise. "It's the way this whole thing was supposed to turn out." He sipped at the edge of his cup, barely getting any of the hot liquid into his mouth. "So I can't really complain."
Looking at Baker with a look of a disbelief didn't do me any favors, since he merely shrugged in response. Then again, since the pair of them were getting along rather well ever since Fisher departed, I shouldn't have been so surprised that trying to pry some concern out of Allan turned out to be just as useless as my attempts to do the same with Baker. "The two of you are so alike that it hurts my fucking head."
"He means that in a good way," Baker smirked, nudging his friend on the shoulder.
"You're all fucking alike," I spouted, only to retract once I caught the attention of a few nearby soldiers, who looked at me with even more confusion than Walker when he tried his hand at poker.
"What's up with you? You've been awfully cranky lately."
Baker nudged Allan and whispered into his ear, though I could clearly make out what he was muttering. "It's his time of the month." Words that were followed by a chorus of childish giggling. Baker shot me an apprehensive look as he laughed away with his companion, which was enough of a warning for me to cool down. I was merely repeating myself at that point anyway, and no one seemed to be paying any heed. The only person who even remotely understood the trauma that was caused by REDLIGHT was Fisher, and it took him a nasty crack to the head and a hefty dismissal for him to realize it. I felt like ramming my head into the table, but I wasn't in the mood for a lecture from Baker. Or a cracked skull.
"Where's Mark?" Walker's yokel accent was the last thing I wanted to hear after enduring such nonsensical behavior from the meathead next to me, but he did raise a point. It had been well over ten minutes since Hafen went for his little bathroom break. I wasn't sure if his earlier remark regarding his bowel movements had proven to be true, or if he was just spending some quality time with his manhood. I shuddered at both prospects, and I wasn't willing to find out for myself.
"I don't know," I responded, trying my best to remain at ease, although I doubt Walker would have been able to tell the difference. I looked at O' Mara, who was haply listening in on us, but he merely shrugged. Baker and the rest of Allan's squad were busy conversing about the construction worker's lackluster physiques, so looking for their opinion would have been an utter waste of my time. I turned back to Walker and smiled innocently. "Why don't you go have a look? I mean, the man won't be doing his nation much good if he's stuck in the bathroom all day."
Walker nodded solemnly. "Good point, Corp." He leaped from his seat, almost bringing the entire table down on us, and sprinted for the corridor next to the canteen. The light from the windows shone brightly upon the lanky little man as he proceeded towards the end of the corridor, before eventually disappearing out of sight as he fumbled his way into the bathroom.
"He makes it way too easy for me," I mumbled, before throwing myself back in my seat and closing my eyes. I've been letting the whole issue with the virus get on my nerves over the last few months far too easily, to the point of where I just wanted to forget about it all. There were more pressing matters to attend to, such as reconciling with Fisher, getting Clark lumbered into the sewers for as long as possible, as well as securing a departure slip to go home and see my family. It was hard to overlook what was going on behind the scenes, and my curious nature was making things quite difficult for me. Learning more about the newborns, the side effects of their manifestation of the virus, and finding out what was up with the horrifying scar on Higgins' back. Things couldn't have been any more stressful for me at that point, or so I thought.
Taking another sip from my tea and exchanging a few quiet words with O' Mara, alongside ignoring the increasingly irritating attempts at humor from Baker, were all I could do to keep myself occupied. We had a patrol within half an hour, so going back to our bunk room alone would have been a waste of time.
O' Mara, looking more concerned than usual, pouted at me. "Anthony's taking his time, huh?"
"Shit, you're right," I replied, coming to the sudden revelation that another five minutes had passed. "What, did he decide to join in or something?"
For once, Jason actually seemed to express a bit of amusement, since getting a smile out of him was about as simple as getting Baker to keep a secret. I looked back at the corridor where Walker had sprinted to earlier on. I squinted at the door at the end of the hallway, only to see it immediately snap open, followed by a loud slam as it collided with the wall. If Chalmers was on the premises, I'm pretty sure he would have been handing out a few sewer patrols at that stage. Walker emerged from the bathroom and jogged towards us. Hafen's absence was concerning to say the least, and I was hoping that the man wasn't suffering from constipation, or severe impotence. The last I needed was more whining.
"Anthony! Where's Hafen?"
He grinned, providing me with a brief sense of relief, at least until he opened his mouth. "He's still in the bathroom, Corp. He's talking with Richie."
The muscles in my arms tightened and I could feel my legs tense up. "Richie? As in, Clark?"
Blissfully unaware of the potential consequences, Walker merely shrugged. "Well, yeah. Who else?"
I looked at O' Mara, who seemed to be just as terrified as I was. "Fuck," he mouthed at me.
We jumped from our seats and ran to the bathroom with as much speed as we could muster. Why I didn't think to stop and tell Baker about it baffled me, but it was too late to turn around at that point. We closed in on the room, taking a moment to wrench at the smell of stale urine, before we fumbled inside and took in the surroundings.
Hafen was lying on the yellow tiled floor, his face covered in blood. He was struggling to rise from the floor, before slipping back down to the ground right as Clark shoved his boot down on his victim. Clark pressed his boot onto Hafen's backside, and the deep creases and wet patches on his uniform indicated that he was being beat around for quite some time. Clark had his back turned to us, and Hafen didn't seem to register our presence yet. I raised my hand to O' Mara, who seemed awfully desperate to charge away at Clark. I wanted to avoid a direct confrontation, so I reckoned that knocking the bastard out before he figured out that we were there was probably the best approach. "Quiet," I mouthed, and O' Mara seemed to get the message.
I looked around for something blunt that I could use. The trashcan was out of the equation, since all it would have done was add to the terrible stench that was already present in the room. I looked at the urinals, only to see that the one closest to us was badly smashed, with bits of bloody shards scattered across the floor. The pipe that connected the urinal to the wall was loosened, and seemed to be in decent enough condition to be used as a makeshift weapon. Clark kept pressing his boot into Hafen's back, quietly laughing away at his victim. All Hafen could do was groan, supposedly lacking the strength necessary to even scream for help. I wasn't left with any options, so I walked towards the pipe.
I remained as quiet as possible, taking my time with each step. For a second I figured that this stealthy approach would have worked out, at least until my boot landed in a puddle right next to the urinal, which was more than loud enough to have caught Clark's attention. The man turned, revealing his stocky little head and bloodshot eyes. He glared at me, and his diabolical grin quickly turned into an angry frown. I gripped the brown pipe hanging from the wall, flinching for a second as my hands caressed the wet surface, and I pulled it. I turned to O' Mara, hoping to ask him to distract Clark, but there was no need for me to have opened my mouth. O' Mara was already running for his nemesis and he dived for him. Nimbly dodging the attack, Clark threw his fist at his attacker, striking his jaw. O' Mara stumbled to the floor, raising his feet up to defend himself, but Clark had no intention of retaliating any further, since he already identified the most apparent threat. He already did enough damage to O' Mara two years ago, so he was clearly looking for a new man to mutilate. Me.
The man roared as he threw himself in my direction. My mouth dried up in fright, but I was still angered enough to wrench the pipe free from the wall and raise it at Clark. "Come on," I screamed, right as I readied my weapon. I swung the metallic tube at the bridge of my assailant's nose. My weapon hit the target with a resounding clank, splitting his skin and presumably breaking the nasal bone. With a howl of pain, Clark stepped away and slipped, falling to the ground with considerable force. I backed away, observing his trembling body, right as he attempted to cradle his wound.
"Oh fuck," he moaned. "My fucking nose! Oh shit!" He started to roar, with a mixture of anger and pain. He raised his hands, which at that stage were soaked. His badly ravaged nose was leaking sickening amounts of blood, enough to have put me in an apologetic position, but I was too shocked to even say anything. I dropped the pipe, which had a wide smear of red liquid across it, and I backed away even further.
O' Mara, who seemed to be still in relatively good humor despite his injury, proceeded to help Hafen off the ground. Hafen was able to walk and speak without much difficulty, indicating that no severe damage had been caused, but the gashes and cuts across his face were still quite a sight. He limped towards one of the cubicles and rested himself on the toilet seat, faintly muttering curses. For once, the man actually had a very good reason to be moaning, since being stuck in here for fifteen minutes with a man like Richard Clark couldn't have been a very delightful experience.
An ensemble of footsteps broke the eerie silence that followed. I tilted my head towards the door, and I could feel my insides sink. Baker, Walker, Allan and at least three other soldiers had just entered the bathroom, staring at us in confusion and shock. I didn't know what to say. All I could do was just look back, shivering due to the scuffle I had just taken part in. Baker walked forward, unable to take his eyes off Clark. "Johnson." He eventually mustered the nerve to confront me. "What the hell..." He gulped, stealing a quick glance at the pipe. "What the hell happened?"
O' Mara stepped forward. "Clark assaulted Hafen, sir. We were only trying to help."
Allan emerged from the crowd and pointed at his subordinate. "Come here."
"But sir-"
"Please, Jason, I don't want to get angry with you," Allan stated as reasonably as he could. "Just come away from that cubicle."
O' Mara looked at me with disappointment, sighing heavily as he trudged towards his commanding officer. He scuttled in behind the crowd and left the room without uttering another word. I stood my ground, staring at the crowd who continued to observe the scene. Baker pointed at Walker and indicated Hafen, who was still tending to his own face in the cubicle. "Walker, you're our squad medic. Get Hafen some medical attention."
"Sure thing, Sarge." Walker strolled towards Hafen and hoisted him up. Hafen wrestled himself away in disgust, before quickly muttering an apology after receiving a stern look from Baker. Walker smiled and escorted Hafen out of the bathroom, whose face was still bleeding rather extensively. The crowd of men parted to make way for the pair, before they disappeared out of sight.
"Where's Sergeant Monroe?" Baker turned to the other men, before one of them raised his hand.
"I saw him and his men out in the shooting range half an hour ago."
Allan smiled at the man, who wasn't in his squad by the looks of it, and approached him. "Would you go fetch him for us? Tell him to go to the infirmary." The man nodded and ran out the door. Allan pointed at the other men and then pointed at the distorted Clark. "Fletcher, Jones. Get him to the infirmary. Get him patched up."
"Will do, Sarge," Fletcher replied, who was presumably the squad's medic, and he proceeded towards Clark and grabbed him by the arms. Jones moved around and gripped Clark's legs, struggling for a moment before loading Clark's feet onto his shoulders. The pair awkwardly managed to move the incapacitated man out of the room. Why Clark needed to be carried away, despite the fact that he only received an injury to the face, was really beyond me. Regardless, I wasn't in a position to argue.
"Well. You did quite a bit of damage there, didn't you?" Baker wasn't looking particularly friendly.
I glanced at the pipe and reached for it, holding it up to show off the bloodstain. "I did, huh?" I looked up and shrugged, feeling more at ease now that the bastard was outside the room. "Guess he got a taste of his own medicine." I looked at Allan. "Jason would have said the same."
Allan frowned, an expression that was still fairly tame compared to how Baker looked. "What happened between him and Clark years ago isn't relevant."
Silence followed, but Baker's facial expression was enough of an indication of what he wanted to say. "You attacked Clark," was exactly what it spelled out.
"It was self-defense," I stated.
"So you decided to break his nose with a pipe," Baker retorted, shaking his head. "Do you have any idea how this will make us look?"
"Yeah?" I was getting aggressive at that point, a side effect of the stress I just suffered from. "And what if Hafen got killed? How do you think that would have made us look?"
Another moment of silence. Baker looked away, still shaking his head in disapproval. Allan seemed to be more disappointed than angry, giving me a very dismal look. "Chalmers is going to freak," he said.
"That's his fucking problem," I replied, dropping the pipe and brushing past the pair of them.
"Go back to the bunk room," Baker ordered. "We'll deal with you once we get Hafen patched up."
"That's exactly what I was going to do." I moved out of earshot before he got a chance to reply. Despite how childish that may have sounded, I wasn't in the mood for prolonging the argument.
All eyes in the mess hall were on Fletcher and Jones, who were still carrying Clark to the other end of the hall. At least a dozen men were in pursuit, hoping to get a glance at Clark's injuries. They were approaching the corridor at the eastern side of the mess hall, so I wasn't able to discern any of the chatter. Despite the crowd, Jones and Fletcher were able to break through without any problem, before they disappeared down the corridor. The infirmary was the last door on the right, so getting there shouldn't have been an issue for them. For a second I felt like going to check up on Hafen, but I imagined that making an appearance right after our little scuffle wouldn't have been the best idea. Our squad's image was probably tarnished enough as it was, so making it look any bleaker was the last thing I wanted to do. I turned and made my way towards the corridor situated next to the building's entrance, which led the way to our bunk room.
I managed to get there without incident, and the fact that the neighboring bunk rooms were deserted was all too relieving. Clark's mangled nose still weighed heavy on my mind and the aftershock from the adrenaline left me a bit dazed, so interrogatives from fellow military personnel would have just made things more painful for me. I dropped my entire body weight on my bunk bed, immediately appeased by the creaks of the feeble timber that held it together. Having a moment's time to rest was all too welcome at that point, since my bad luck was really starting to bore down on me. REDLIGHT was starting to become like more of a jinx than an actual virus. A virus can be avoided, but a jinx sticks by you until you can find some way to get rid of it. However, living in a town that revolves around this jinx made this a much harder task than it sounded. Even so much as mentioning the bloody thing ended up getting me involved in another travesty, and one that threatened the welfare of the entire squad.
I closed my eyes and tried to rest, but my entire body was still trembling. The health sections of the local newspapers, that I recently found myself developing an addiction to, stated that these sort of situations invoke a "fight-or-flight response", and it was a symptom that I found myself encountering far too many times for my personal tastes. My face was flushed, and I seemed to have been getting a bit of a temperature, which I reckoned was what prevented me from falling asleep. I stood, opened my hamper and fetched my towel. What I needed was a nice, cool shower to get me back to speed. Maybe then I would have been able to calm down and approach the situation with greater ease. I unbuttoned my jacket and proceeded to walk out the door, only to be stopped dead in my tracks by a series of footsteps behind me, one of which stood out among the others. It was almost as if the individual was stamping his way towards me, and the sound of heavy boots slamming against the concrete floor was enough of an indication of who it was.
I turned to face a pair of men, both of whom I recognized as the same men who stand guard at the conference hall's door during a meeting. I stood to attention and as I raised my hand to salute, the two men stood aside briskly, revealing Sergeant Major Chalmers, who had his trousers tucked into his pair of oversized black boots.
"Corporal Peter Johnson," he began, walking closer to me, highlighting his below average height. He looked up at me and frowned, his neatly trimmed eyebrows arching down. Suppressing a smile was proving to be very difficult at that stage, but I didn't have much to be happy about once he opened his mouth again. "Mind if I see you in my office?"