Hello!

Again, I apologize for the delay, but hope you guys are still with me! I hope everyone is having a wonder Christmas and holiday season. This chapter is relatively short, but it is dedicated to Kit-Marie from Australia. She left me a really beautiful review, and I appreciate it so much :) Just to let ya'll know, my other story, A Smile to Die For, is being re-vamped, but the first chapter should be out within a few days. Anyways, thanks so much to Kit-Marie for her lovely review- it was a wonderful Christmas present for me! Please read and review. And know that part two of this chapter should be out within a few days.

Lots of Love,

EllieMayy

"What was this hell."

That was all Sidney Phillips could think as he heard the splatter of mud underneath his boots as he jumped over the side of the amtrac. Eugene was by
his side, his dark eyes darting from horizon to horizon, from heaving ocean, to the sharp ridges that stood before them

"Welcome to Okinawa." The gunny sergeant called, pausing a moment to pull thecigarette from between his lips.
"You smell that boys?" he asked, turning his ragged face into the wind. "That's the smell of victory."

Sid wasn't sure what Gunny smelled in the smoke filled air other that the scent of freshly burnt and rotting bodies. Sid inhaled, breathing in the supposed scent of winning a war. It filled his lungs, and coated them with the ash of scorched corpses, and charred first. He almost bent over and puked, and when he turned back to look at Eugene, he saw other ben hunched over and retching. The gunny Sargent motioned the company forward , and Sid fell into
line beside Euegne and Snafu whom he hadn't seen in quite some time.

Snafu was wearing a grin on his face as they plodded up a hill, guns pointed.
"I like that smell." He noted, his large green eyes wide.
Eugene scoffed and shook his head. "Well I sure as hell don't."
Snafu leaned over and pressed his forehead to Eugene's staring his straight in the eyes.
"These Japs fighting for their own turf now. They'll get meaner and meaner every damn foot we go south." His voice was in a growl as he smacked his forehead against Eugene's as if to literally bash his point into the skull of his comrade. "You better get mean too."

Eugene grunted and pushed Snafu away, but Snafu simply chuckled, and jogged a few feet ahead.
Sid couldn't help but nod. He knew Snafu was more that right. The Japs knew they couldn't win, but they could make the Americans belled like hell before
claiming victory. This battle was going to be determined by who could hold out the longest. Who could stay sane in the hills and valleys on this island made entirely from muck. This battle was going to be won, life by life, until one side ran out of soldiers. And the Japanese would run out first, it was merely a matter of how many American lives they would take with them. There would be no true winners were on Okinawa, only bodies.

The company trudged on past a jeep, it's tires stuck in deep ruts of mud, evidence of it's useless churning in an attempt to escape. Sid couldn't help but notice the driver was still inside, bent over a blood encrusted steering wheel, his skull smashed in. He'd beat his own brains outon the dashboard, hitting his head against the instrument panel until he died. Sid felt his stare was followed by many others, as heads turned to look at the sights of a man who killed himself rather than attempt to fight the massive amount of muck any longer. Sid could guarantee that every man in the company was praying he would never go crazy enough to do such a thing. Sid noticed that because of the mud, the dead could not be given a proper burial. Bodies that were buried would simply bubble back up to the surface, hands, feet and and noses poking through the mire. This whole island was a swimming cemetery. Sid hoped that if he died, they'd have the sense to set his corpse afire, insteadof letting him float aimlessly around in the soupy mud. He'd rather contribute to the island's ash, then its mud.
The gunny sergeant finally halted and turned to face his company, whose faces had all frozen into a single expression of horror.

"Dig in boys." He told them, before pointing to a ridge. "Tomorrow, I'll take volunteers who want to take that ridge with me, and help relieve the first
marines."

Sid didn't bother taking out his shovel. He just plopped down into the meet, feeling it seep through his clothes and onto his skin.
Already, Sid was more miserable on his first few hours on Okinawa than every else he'd been in the entire war.

x.x.x.x

Tallulah stared down at the body of John Basilone. She had to stop herself from placing her hands on his chest and starting compressions. By the pallor of his
face, and the stiffness in his limbs, she knew that he was long gone, but the sight of his strong figure so listless threatened to snap something already
fragile in Tallulah. The threshold was being breached. In a single day, she'd seen Sid and Eugene leave to invade Okinawa, she'd felt the stirrings of her
child, she'd made a promise to Sid that she had no intention of keeping, and now, she stood over the dead body of one of the only true friend's she'd ever
had. As tears trickled down her cheek she picked up the rag that had fallen to the floor. She tossed in a dirty laundry hamper, and retrieved a clean towel.
It seemed wrong to wipe away the dirt on John's face was something already soiled. She dipped the cloth in the basin of hot water, and with smooth strokes
began to wash away the dirt and blood smeared across his face. She cried quietly to herself, and she performed her work, watching her tears mix with the
wash water.

She wanted to stop, to fling the towel to the floor and scream. She wanted to let out a scream that would echo throughout the ward, bounce off the
walls, and bound out over the ocean. She wanted to scream so loudly that she could be heard over the roar of artillery fire, over the shrieking of shells,
and the cries of the owned. She wanted to scream so loudly that someone would hear her above the drone of a poolside party, and clinking of champagne glasses. She wanted to scream so loudly that they would hear her in Mobile above the sound of hammers clanking against steel hulls. She wanted to scream
so loudly that she could be heard in Washtong and Japan. But for every reason she had to yell, to belt her sorrows out to the world, some soldier on the
beach had equal reason. Some unlucky mother of four had equal reason. Some now fatherless child somewhere had equal reason.
And maybe they were screaming- but Tallulah couldn't hear them.

Her eyes swept over John's face, which was surprisingly calm and peaceful. She wondered if Lena would scream when she could hear that he was dead. She'd heard Sid scream many nights, terrified of something he'd seen once, that was no longer there, but continued to haunt him.
She was sure Teola screamed when she learned that Tom had been burnt to death.
She wondered if everyone who felt like she did screamed if the entire world would be deafened, and the earth would be completely silent.

With careful fingers, she began unbuttoning John's shirt, exposing the dark, Italian skin on his chest. It was then that she saw the wound. A gaping hole
right in the center of his chest. She placed her hand over the damage, to block it out, and imagined him whole again. Imagined him alive again.
She still remembered their photoshoot together. It had been less than a year ago, but still seemed an eternity away. Tallulah reached down and ran the washcloth over his arms, forever branded with the scares from the third degree burns he willingly received that night in the jungle. She traced the markings with her fingertips, wondering exactly what drove a man like John return to all this hell. He'd met the girl of his dreams, and was living life like a celebrity . And yet, John needed to have his boots on contested soil, his hands around a weapon, bearing his body for his country.
Duty wasn't taking a victory tour to show off his medal and mutilations- duty was hitting the beach. She tossed the rag back into the washbasin and picked up the needle and stitching thread that lay on the bedside table. She took the needle and pierced his tan skin, and watched the thread slide through the hole. She repeated the motion again and again until the two halved of john's chest were sewn back together in a neat pattern of x's. When she was finied she
redressed his clean body in his tattered uniform. They would surely put his dress blues on for his burial when he was transported stateside.

She wiped a few more of her tears away and took his hand, forcing her fingers in between his that had grown cold and stiff.
She squeezed his hand, before placing it on her swollen stomach.

"I know what I'm going to call him." Tallulah bent down and whispered in John's ear, praying her could somehow hear her.
"If he's a boy. He'll be John."
She sat with him, his hand in hers, until she felt she had the strength to move.
Finally she rose from her seat at his bedside, and bent down to give him a kiss on the forehead, before walking through the ward and down the hallway.
When she arrived at her room, Tallulah collapsed upon the bed, grabbed a pillow, and buried her face deep into the fluff.

Then she screamed until she cried.

And cried until she fell asleep.

x.x.x

The night was long, muddy and orange.
And Sid hated every fucking second of it.
Sid sat in his sorry excuse for a foxhole and stared at Eugne who was huddled up next to him.
"What is this place?" Sid mused to the darkness, holding up a handful of mud.
"Hell's own cesspool." Eugene answered, his arms folded across his chest for
warmth.

Sid was tired. He wanted nothing more than to close is eyes and feel sleep start to seduce him. But instead he stared up at a sky that was far too bright,
a sky that was the color of cooked carrots. Pure blackness would have been too great a luxury for the first marines and their stinging eyeballs. Even on
Guadalcanal, the nights were dark and only lit by the flash on gunfire streaking through the jungle plants. Here, the night was perpetually a glow.
Something was always burning, something was always exploding, something was always aflame and afire,- painting the sky Sid's least favorite color. His
minds was screaming at him to return to the troop ship and return to Tallulah and the baby. But the troop ship has sailed and the Solace remained anchored an unreachable and dishonorable distance away.

Suddenly there was a flurry of movement and Sid looked up to see Snafu perching on the edge of his foxhole, peering down at him and Eugene, like
a vulture waiting.

Sid didn't bother to speak to Snafu. He didn't even bother to move. Snafu's unpredictable jestures no longer surprised him. Sid just stared back at him, his blue eyes illuminated by the fiery landscape.
Snafu finally spoke. "Gunny wants volunteers. HQ decided we needed to get an early start taking that ridge."
Eugene snorted. "And I suppose you've come to collect us?"
Snafu's head cocked to the side, and in the flow of the distant explosions, Sid could see his eyes, wide and unblinking as usual.
"Well, ya ain't sleeping. Might as well make yourselves useful."

Sid wondered how long Snafu could crouch like that, with all his weight dropped onto the back of heels, his hands hanging between his legs.
But he imagined he would remain there, until he got an affirmative answer. He would just sit there, staring at them, and daring them to face death with the same nonchalance and apathy as he did.

But Sid no longer felt the stirrings of duty deep within him, like he once had.
In fact, Sid was quite tired of fighting, and he had never been quite as afraid of dying as he was now, with two other lives depending on his. Somehow,
the thought of his wife and his child far outweighed the service of becoming a corpse for his country. But he knew in every foxhole, sat a husband and in
every entrenchment sat a father, who still choose to be a soldier.

Sid grunted, and rose from the muck he sat in. He extended a hand to Eugene.
"You coming?"
Eugene stared up at him, and his lips twisted up into a grin, as he grabbed his
friend's forearm. "Yeah."
Sid picked up his fun and turned just in time to see Snafu slink off into the smoke. Everything inside him was screaming at him to stay in his stupid foxhole, to forget honor, and huddle back down into the mud. But he trudged out of his hole anyway, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Eugene.

"Don't get killed out there." He warned, screaming over the shrieking shells. "Stay close."