He writes to Jemma and doesn't bother with any attempt at security this time. If they are truly moving inland, he knows it will be months, at least, before he receives another stack of letters from her. The ones he has received already take up half his haversack and Hunter teases him for wanting to pack them all in the first place.
"You'll already be loaded like a bloody pack mule."
"I'll be fine," Fitz dismisses stubbornly. He has done this three times before after all, packed his gear and prepared for the unknown. This time is different though. In France, he hadn't known what to expect, but it had been early in the war and nobody knew how to prepare. In Sicily, he'd known his mission was to prepare the beachhead. In Italy, he'd known it would be much of the same. But this is different and Hunter is quick to remind him of that on every occasion.
He looks out on all the items laid atop his groundsheet. They've just completed their equipment draw and move out in an hour. There's everything on the sheet from a gas cape to a sewing kit.
"Do you have wire cutters?"
"I do."
"And spare batteries for the radio?"
"Smyth's got those."
"I'd go see if you could draw more in case Smyth goes down."
Fitz knows the matter-of-fact warning comes from a man well-experienced in combat. Hunter advises him how many socks and pairs of gaiters he should pack and the best place to fix his medical kit on the webbing.
When he does go check on the rest of the section and, rather forebodingly, attempt to obtain more field dressings, Fitz struggles to stuff everything into his haversack and pockets. Try as he might, he can't make it all fit and keep all of Jemma's letters. He'd rather pack them than the two Mills bombs since his skill at throwing a grenade is even worse than his skill with a rifle. Hunter would never let him hear the end of it and, whether he wants to admit it, he knows it would be foolish to leave them behind. So with less than an hour before they're set to move out, rather than secure more ammunition and chargers or hunt down the wireless batteries, he sifts through Jemma's letters and tries to determine which ones to keep.
There's the one where she'd quoted the lyrics to "We'll Meet Again" and the one he swears she'd dabbed rosewater on so it smells like her. There's the one she'd fondly recalled all the memories from the first time they met in London and the one that detailed the wonderful week in Edinburgh. In the end, he settles on five letters that he hopes will be enough to sustain him through whatever is about to come.
"Got bandages, five more chargers, and some rope!" Hunter returns happily, dumping his haul on the ground in front of Fitz.
"Rope?"
"There's mountains here or did your sand tables not show it?" He tosses some to Fitz along with two more rolled field dressings. The teasing comment is meant to be a joke, but it paralyzes Fitz. No amount of studying the terrain can prepare him for what they're about to do.
While he's done plenty of road marches in nearly five years in the Army, Fitz has never done it with such a heavy fighting load or nearly as much trepidation. Even the field dressings are difficult to stuff into his pack.
He tries to recall what his time in France as part of the 2nd British Expeditionary Force had been like. Their task then, holding the line against the oncoming Germans, in some ways had been just as terrifying as invading the Italian peninsula now. Still he'd been so green and the war was still so new. No one really knew what to expect from the German war machine. His company had been at the back of the column and they'd ridden most of the way there in trucks. It's more than that though. It's the heavy feeling that his luck has run out. For four years he's served as a rifleman. He's landed in France, Sicily, and now the Italian mainland and somehow managed to avoid direct combat each time. As they board the trucks that will take him to the front of the 8th Army's advance, he knows that's all about to change.
For the first three days, he thinks perhaps his luck will continue. Their movement along the coastal highway is slow. They spend nearly four days resting on the beaches while they wait for engineers to clear debris from the road. In his letter to Jemma he shares how, much like he'd told her, little engineering seems to be involved in the life of a combat engineer. Mostly they just appear to drive bulldozers and carry lots of TNT. He tells her about the sunrises on the coast and how frustrating it is to know so little of their mission and what they're doing. He clings to the map and examines it every night, using his compass to shoot an azimuth and try to figure out their location based on landmarks and road signs. He thinks about his mum and how she'd pleaded with him to become an officer, wondering how much more of the mission he would understand if that were true. All he knows is they're meant to move to the heel of the boot.
"Has our mission changed?" Fitz inquires when they hop into trucks suddenly and begin moving in another direction.
"Don't know, mate," Hunter remarks.
"It's just we're not moving northeast anymore. We're moving west now," he notes, looking at his compass. Reaching into the pocket on his right thigh, he pulls out the map. "I thought we were meant to go to Taranto. That's east?"
"Well, now it seems we're going west." There's a touch of frustration to Hunter's voice at his constant questions, but Fitz continues to press him.
"Shouldn't they tell us if - I mean - shouldn't we know why we're changing directions?"
"I reckon they'll tell us when we need to know."
"Don't you want to know wh - "
"Your job isn't to know why," Hunter reminds. "Your job is to go where they tell you."
He knows the comment is intended as little more of a reminder of his role as a lower enlisted soldier. However, it reminds Fitz of Captain Ward, the sneering American officer who'd thrown him in the glasshouse. Ward had said it like a taunt, a reminder that Fitz's rank means his life and choices ultimately do not belong to him.
The route to Potenza travels up into mountains through a spectacular series of switchbacks that make Fitz's knuckles whiten. The journey is made worse by the sight of still-smoking German demolitions blocking their passage yet again. The smoke looks recent. Fitz knows it means the people who set them up are close and he is hardly encouraged when D Company is one of two companies selected to move out on foot to attempt to disrupt the demolition squads.
He thinks of Jemma and his mum as the subaltern briefs the platoon. His job isn't to prepare the beaches. It's not organizing a beachhead or marching to Taranto. His mission is to disrupt German soldiers and keep them from laying mines and booby traps as they retreat north. He knows the only way an infantry soldier is meant to do that.
Clutching the Enfield tightly in his hands, his heart pounding, Fitz keeps his head on a swivel. He thinks about all the alterations he'd made to the rifle over the years. It had all been notional then. The improvements he had made were grounded in theory and only put into practice on a carefully controlled range. He's at war now. Not the way he'd been in France when they'd raced back from the front as quickly as they'd arrived. Not the way he'd been in Scotland training for a war far away.
Creeping through the woods in enemy territory, the sounds of combat, real combat, grow nearer. First, it's the brief staccato of gunfire then the sound of explosions and shells overhead. He sees his first dead body in the first hour of their march north. It's the huge cloud of black flies that first draws his attention. He remembers a similar sight in France years ago that had accompanied the dead horses along the road.
He thought then that he knew what death smelled like, but the sweet sickly terrible stench that accompanies the German soldiers in the blown half-track is something entirely new. They are sprawled in grotesque inhuman positions. One is missing half of his skull, the other's head is blown so far backwards it hangs down his back. Fitz retches so violently on the side of the road, Hunter falls out to check on him. He says nothing, just hands him his canteen.
"That'll dehydrate you," he remarks, eyeing the giant puddle of sick. Fitz wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve and accepts the canteen with shaky hands. He doesn't want to look through the cloud of flies, but the sight of men so violently killed is a shocking reminder of the permanence of where he is and what he's doing. "You're all right." Hunter nudges Fitz forward. "Just drink water and keep moving."
He doesn't have to tell Fitz it means they're getting closer.
They pass numerous other diversionary operations, first a giant crater blown in the road and then yet another demolished bridge. A shattered jeep and carrier mark the spot where a friendly recon party had run into a mine. Newly dug graves lay alongside the wreckage and include one with what looks to be a civilian cap. Fitz feels sick again. He wonders if the civilian had been trying to help, whether their death had been quick, and if their family was still waiting at home for their return.
Despite the absence of actual fighting, he's completely knackered when they bivouac for the night on a bend overlooking two empty river beds. He thinks of his father's words in his flat in Edinburgh months ago, about how no battle exercise - no matter how realistic - can prepare men for war.
Unable to sleep, despite Hunter's numerous commands to do so, he keeps his eyes on the dry creek beds and the blown bridge in the valley below, wondering not if, but when the enemy will finally stop retreating and laying mines and stand and fight. He thinks of writing to Jemma, recalling what a comfort she'd been to him in that uncertain week in France years ago, but he doesn't know what he would even say.
He tries to live in that perfect moment on the platform in Bletchley when they'd last said goodbye. He recalls each detail he'd tried to inventory of their last hug and the way she'd nestled into his shoulder when she'd told him to come back to her.
When the rest of the squad finally wakes, Hunter asks Fitz how he is.
Fitz just grunts in reply and roots through his haversack for some tinned meat.
"You can't hesitate, you know," Hunter warns, his voice unusually solemn. "When we make contact."
"I won't." Fitz is annoyed at the insinuation that he'd act the part of the coward. He's heard it enough from his father.
The first time he's directly fired upon however, that's exactly what happens. It happens so quickly he can't even realize where it's coming from or who is shooting at him.
The world goes dark and he suddenly can't see anything that's not in his immediate vicinity. He can't hear anything either. These aren't shells falling well behind his position. These are bullets striking the wall inches from his head that are clearly aimed at him.
All he can think about is how much he doesn't want to be here. He thinks about that final hug with Jemma and his last visit home to his mum. He thinks about his workshop in Edinburgh and the safe and comfortable position he'd happily held for thirteen months. He thinks about all the paths he could have taken that have led him here. To this absurd place where complete strangers are trying to kill him.
It's the sound of Hunter's voice that opens the world up again. Fitz knows his sergeant can see him, paralyzed against the wall, eyes stinging with tears. He squeezes his rifle tightly in his hands, trying to remind himself he'd been fired on before in France. He'd been in the safety of a well-dug trench then and the poorly aimed bullets had fired far from his actual position. These are so close fragments of masonry from the wall he's hugging fall onto his face. From across the street, Hunter pulls himself off the wall, temporarily exposing himself to the gunfire, desperately imploring Fitz to move and return fire.
With shaking hands and tears in his eyes, Fitz presses the bolt forward and locks it down. Drawing in a ragged breath, he forces himself to leave the safety and cover of the building and squeeze off a round in the general direction that Hunter is shooting. Then he flattens himself against the wall, pulls back the bolt, sucks in a shaky breath and does it again. He repeats the action three more times until he has to reload and put in another five-round charger. By then Smyth has joined him. The quiet private instinctively takes over Fitz's position and begins laying down rounds while Fitz gets on the wireless and tries to communicate where the fire is coming from.
It feels like hours before the mortar squad neutralizes the threat. In reality, he knows it's mere minutes.
The small firefight initiates a pattern that continues at nearly every hamlet between it and Potenza. By the time they finally reach the town, Fitz no longer needs a moment to collect himself at the sound of enemy gunfire. He stays close to Smyth, who he quickly learns is a professional and capable soldier, despite looking like he's not a day over sixteen.
"You okay?" Hunter asks in between their third and fourth firefight of the day, noticing Fitz's silence. They've all been brief, delaying actions more than actual attempts to engage. The moment they return fire with any concentrated effort, the enemy disappears before Fitz can even finish calling in their position. It's all over in a matter of minutes.
When they finally dig in for the night after his first real day in combat, Fitz can hardly think of a time he's been so tired. The earth is dry and rocky and it had been difficult to dig, an added layer of exhaustion after a day that had drained him in every way. They've marched close to 20km and fought in four separate engagements. Dropping his entrenching tool to the bottom of the slit trench, Fitz settles in without a word.
"Quite a trial by fire," Hunter remarks as he settles into the trench as well and offers Fitz a cigarette. "You did well." Refusing the offer, Fitz just lays his rifle across his lap and closes his eyes. "Get some sleep."
Though his eyes are closed, Fitz knows he won't be able to sleep. He pens a letter to Jemma in his head, telling her first about the disturbing sight of the dead Germans he doubts he'll be able to forget and then the numerous firefights as they'd moved through the mountains. He wonders how anyone is able to sleep with the sight of muzzle flashes and the sound of gunfire further down in the valley.
He spends all night waiting for dawn. Yet somehow after another day of near-constant marching and pursuing the enemy, in what feels like a terrible game of cat-and-mouse, he just wants it to be night again.
It must be a whole week before he actually sleeps. In that time, he's inundated with a whole new wave of horrors to haunt him. Mostly the German army is in retreat, laying landmines, blowing bridges and stalling the invading forces the best they can. Every delaying action greets Fitz with a new horror though. Like the two corporals mangled by a Tellermine. They'll survive, but the memory is seared into Fitz's mind. The shinbone sticking out with no foot at the end of the leg. The flesh and bone and meat scattered around the site of impact. It forces an unpleasant realization as he looks out on the bloody sight that that's all he really is is meat. Meat for the other side to shoot at.
Hunter checks in on him constantly, noting his unnatural silences whenever they dig in for the night. Fitz knows it's obvious. He doesn't write Jemma from his foxhole like he'd done nearly every day back on the beaches. He doesn't initiate conversation. He's constantly lost in the own miserable wanderings of his mind. Sometimes it's the dead Germans and the flesh of his fellow Jocks strewn all over the road. Other times it's of Jemma and the life he wonders he'll ever get to lead. He realizes here it doesn't matter what life he'd lived back home or how clever he is. Here they're all just anonymous cogs in the great war machine.
"I don't want to be here," Fitz admits quietly after Hunter asks how he's doing.
"Nobody does," Hunter replies as he begins brewing a tin of hot water over a Hexamine tablet to start breakfast. "But we're here."
The moment H company stops reacting and finally goes on the offensive, all Fitz can think of is his old unit still back in Scotland. They'd done a hundred of these kinds of maneuvers back in training. It's a textbook assault on an objective. He tries to remember the key ideas that had been drilled into his head, but "massing overwhelming fire on the enemy" means something entirely different when he's the one who is massing fire and the enemy is trying to kill him. It all seems so ludicrously unreal and yet horrifyingly real at the same time.
It's a proper offensive. They're supported by artillery roaring overhead and are tasked with taking a town. Entering a town defended heavily by Germans feels like a suicide mission. He has a moment in the dry creekbed in the eastern half of the town where he's sure this is how his life ends. He watches what seems like every Jock in his section go down and throws himself onto the rocks. His team leader is on his feet, but he's trailing a bloodsoaked and bullet-shattered arm and has no weapon in hand. They're pinned down by a tornado of small arms fire and every sign of movement just draws more. He wonders what the bullets will feel like when they rip through him and how his mother will cope when she loses her only son, whether Jemma will even know what's happened to him.
But then Hunter hauls him to his feet and the Canadian tanks come roaring through and his life doesn't end. He scrambles to his feet and continues moving forward.
Peering down an alley, it's the fight in the small town where he takes his first life. He has little time to dwell on the fact that doing his utmost to kill strangers is now his only job. He just sees the grey-clad soldier jerk back suddenly and fall to the ground. Pulling back the bolt, he chambers another round and scans for more enemy. In the throes of battle, it's as painfully simple as squashing a bug. He wants to be sick, but there's not enough time.
Hunter checks on him that night like always. They've lost twelve members of the platoon, including two from Fitz's rifle section, but at least tonight they are safe in the confines of the city cathedral. It's a nice pleasure to have four walls and a roof over their head, even if it is only for the night. Hunter assures Fitz that, unpleasant as this all is, he'll get used to it. That he already is.
"I don't want to get used to it," Fitz replies numbly. He wonders about the grey-clad soldier who had fallen when his bullet had hit and who would mourn him when the letter arrived that said he was dead.
"Look, you're a soldier. You have to kill people," Hunter speaks plainly. "You don't have to feel good about it. You just have to do it."
The reality of each day in Italy should help Fitz realize Hunter is right. Because after Potenza it's Castello then Melfi. He's not sure when it happens, but his actions become instinctual. He doesn't freeze and fight back tears when he hears gunfire. Instead, he notes where it's coming from, finds cover, returns fire, then gets on the wireless. When enemy artillery sounds, he takes out his compass and gets a quick bearing on where it's coming from, noting the interval between the initial blast and the sound of impact.
He tries to write to Jemma. His attempts to describe the Italian countryside, the great castle in Potenza and the villagers who willingly swap fresh eggs and cheese for bully beef and Compo chocolate, seem remarkably devoid of any real feeling of what it's actually like here though and he doesn't want to lie to her.
He wants to tell her everything. The sheer bliss that came this evening when he took his boots off for the first time in eight days and how he's grown so used to sleeping in two hour increments he can't sleep through the night. He wants to try to explain what it's like to wake up to a sunrise before a mission and wonder how many people in the platoon, including himself, will be there to see another, only to spend the entire day waiting for orders that never came. He wants to attempt to convey the confusion that accompanies war when the only real information they receive before a mission is the movement order; how he has little idea where they even are on the peninsula anymore. He wants to describe everything about the moment in the creekbed he'd been sure a bullet was going to catch him, how he'd seen the insides of a man in his platoon spill out onto the ground on their assault into Potenza, and all the horrifying images that play out over and over every time he closes his eyes at night.
He wants to tell her absolutely everything about the terrible combination of confusion, horror, boredom, and fear that make up every day here. He'd be a stranger. Nothing about this life shares any familiarity with any thought, memory, or moment he's ever shared with Jemma. Warm thoughts of Jemma, the pleasant lilt to her voice, the way she laced her arm around his and once nestled into his shoulder, offer him some comfort, but each morning he wakes up with the bitter shock and realization that he is here and this is his life, it feels less like a reality he'd once lived.
When he picks up the pen to write to her, he can't make any words form. Whenever he tries all he can think about is the grey-clad soldier in the alley in Potenza. The one who was probably scared and hungry and homesick too. He wants to tell Jemma about the man who is dead simply because he had willed it and squeezed the trigger.
Despite what Hunter says, he doesn't get used to taking a life. He tastes the bile rising in his throat the second time. This time he sees where his shot lands. He shoots the fellow through the pelvis and has time to think about which internal organs the .303 caliber bullet had hit and how long it had probably taken the gutshot shoulder to bleed out. He has the time to reflect and wish he'd been more accurate like Hunter, who always gets head shots that bring instantaneous death.
It's that thought, that moment when he realizes he finds himself wishing he'd killed a human being another way, that he gets sick. But it's the third time when he doesn't get sick - when he doesn't pause, doesn't reflect, and doesn't feel a pang of regret that he's taken a life before it could take his - that he finally accepts Hunter's words and the fact that killing is a part of his daily routine.
That's the realization that makes writing to Jemma impossible.
"You alright, mate?" Hunter asks like he does every night after they've dug their trenches. It had been an ugly assault into Foggia. Despite the fact that the city had been leveled by Allied bombers and the rough plan on paper given by the commander had been delightfully simple and free of snags, they'd still encountered fierce pockets of German resistance on their advance into the city. Nobody from the platoon had been hit, but the horrific sight of the horse hit with one of their 25 pounders is one Fitz doubts he'll ever forget.
Fitz looks at the words on the paper in front of him. The only words he'd been able to write to her for three weeks now.Dear Jemma. He folds the paper back up, tucks it back into his pocket, and continues cleaning his rifle.
"As I'll ever be."