28 September 1916…

We were wrong. So very wrong.

The war was no nearer to being over in September than it was in July. We had been so hopeful. I, even, had begun to think about what I was going to do after I had gotten out of France when the war was over. Those hopes were dashed when the first full month of the Somme Offensive had concluded. The Allied forces were bitterly holding out, hardly gaining any ground across the front lines—and more soldiers died every day.

In the time that I had been in the Somme Valley, several important events had come to pass.

Firstly, a shift in power within the German ranks. General Paul von Hindenburg was entrusted with the position of Chief of Staff of the German Army. That was August. None of us really understood his impact until we found out that he and his deputy had established their own de facto government. Hindenburg was now the one calling the shots—not Wilhelm II. His military dictatorship began with the bolstering of defensive warfare. In a brilliant technique, he had called for fewer frontline defenders, and when the Allied troops descended to wipe them out, heavy artillery would rain down. They did not care if a number of their own men died—it was worth it to eliminate a greater number of their enemy.

Secondly, the British introduced their own new form of warfare; this time being even more offensive than defensive than ever before. New machine guns, new chemical gases, and new artillery were experimented with. I recalled the chill that had traveled down my spine at the sight of what the officers were calling a "tank", introduced on the 15th of September. It was the first ever vehicle of its kind—and as much as I wanted to share in the hopes of what the tank could accomplish for the Allies, all I felt was dread as my stomach sank. How many more would die? How much further would each side go to achieve this "higher form of warfare" that everyone seemed to be talking about?

The truth was, I was growing more demoralized every day. I had seen more men die than I had ever imagined because of the ingenuity of both side's inventors. I just wanted it to stop, which led to the third and final event; this time more personal to me than to any historian. One night, just over a week ago, I had broken down in tears for the first time since my arrival in Europe, almost two years ago. It was too much. I had seen too much.

I had waited until after my shift was over, thank goodness, but I had felt it coming in the hours leading up to it. That night, Piper had put her arms around me as I cried silent tears. I remembered the look on her face when I had started—complete shock dominated her features at first. After all, I usually had immense control over my emotions. Then a sobering expression came over her and she began to comfort me.

I was back to normal the next day—business as usual. But we made certain after that event that we would check in on each other from time to time. We were of no use if we were indisposed by our own emotions. Just as the troops did, we found a way to soldier on.

Some of the real heroes, at least for me, were the members of the British General Post Office. Those who worked for the GPO, mostly women actually, navigated the messaging of millions of letters each day. That was the one redeeming quality of being near the River Somme; letters came and went faster here than at the clearing station in Boisleux au Mont. Percy and I grew closer. I had received another missive from him today. It was still in my pocket. I had decided to read it when I got off my shift. That way I would be able to pen my response right away without any interruptions.

So, while Piper went to join her husband for a walk around the outer ring off battleground land like they had grown accustomed to, I tucked myself into a corner of Piper and I's quarters and broke the seal of Percy's letter.

Love,

I exhaled a content sigh at the sight of how he addressed me.

I hope you are feeling better since you wrote that last letter. You seemed so heartbroken that I began to feel it too, seeing as we share one heart now. Don't lose faith. We'll get through this together, one way or another. We have a date after all of this, remember?

I have some good news to share with you. Hopefully my fortune will feel like yours as well. I am being promoted to the position of Commodore, Second Class, of the Royal Navy. In just a few weeks I will have the responsibility of a squadron of ships in the Navy. I never thought I would even get to the rank of Captain, so this was a shock to me…especially because of my record with HMS Dreadnaught from so many months ago.

As much as I love the sea, I must admit I am growing wary of it. I look forward to the day when I can stand on dry land again, which brings me to my next point in writing this letter. I will be docking in Etaples, France in October for the purpose of meeting the line Captains who will be reporting to me after my promotion. You mentioned there was a hospital there?

Is there any way you could get to Etaples by October 11th? I know it is unlikely, but I would never forgive myself if I didn't try to see you, because I would love to see you. If you make it to the Etaples harbor, look for HMS Neptune. She will be flying a red and white pennant flag with this design:

A roughly drawn triangular flag was included at the bottom of the letter. There was a Cross of St. George, as was customary of most British flags, as well as a circle in the upper left corner.

As always, Annabeth, I love you. I cannot wait to see you, whenever that may be.

Yours forever,

Percy

I reread the letter twice as Percy's words settled in. He would be in France! What were the odds? I knew Etaples was only a little over an hour away by car. How would I manage to work that out though? I had two weeks to get there, and somehow I knew I would figure it out.

Later the next day, I spoke to a charge nurse in the one of the Red Cross administrative tents. She was a stiff older woman who let little slip by here as she organized all of the movements of nurses and doctors in the area. When I explained to her why I needed to get to the French coast, her stern features softened, and she said something along the lines of, "I'm sure we can work something out."

It was settled. On the tenth of October, I would be on a truck to the Order of St. John hospital, where I would spend the night, meet up with Percy on the eleventh, and then bring back a consignment of medical supplies for the nurses and doctors on the front lines by the twelfth. It was going to be a very fast trip, but I thanked the charge nurse multiple times as she wrote down the plans. She had told me that she needed to send someone to the Etaples hospital anyway, and that I would be doing her a favor, but I understood what she had done for me.

I sent my response to Percy as soon as I could, wasting no time in a simple, three-word message. I'll be there. This was my new hope to hold onto. I thought about it constantly as I counted down the days until I would be climbing into the vehicle that would take me away from the front, even if it was just a short reprieve of a few days.

"Annabeth?" a voice drew me out of my stupor. It was Will. He and Piper rolled their eyes in unison at my daydreaming.

"Sorry. What is it?" I asked, mentally kicking myself that I hadn't been paying attention during a shift.

"Someone just—" Will tried to say, before his voice was cut short, drowned out by a thundering, clamorous blast. Some sort of explosion had gone off, and the ground shook, spraying scores of dirt down from the tops of the outer trench we were standing in. One of our crates tipped over, spilling sterilized tools onto the muddy ground. A wall of sandbags that had been used to separate two medical stations began to tumble sideways. I rushed to catch it as the raucous cries of others took the place of the boom. Piper was quick to help me, and together we righted the patched-up structure. Will, in the meantime had picked up our equipment, dripping with loose mud that clung to the steel pieces.

"What the bloody hell was that?" He asked incredulously, his English accent becoming thicker in his panic.

"Whatever it was," Piper said as she looked down the long trench line, "It caused quite a bit of damage."

I joined her, looking from either direction to see if we could determine what had happened. There were sounds of screaming in the distance, and there was a pickup of machine gun fire. We only had to wait about ten minutes before I was saying, "Incoming!"

A couple men stumbled toward our station, more trailing behind them. I waved the first couple toward our table before pointing to stations further down. I whirled back around. Somewhat to my surprise, the wounds were minimal, just some cuts and gashes that needed some antiseptic and stitching up with a needle.

"What happened?" Piper asked one of them as she pushed a square of gauze against one man's shoulder. A scattering of cuts with no particular pattern had been gouged into his skin. The soldier in question didn't seem to be in pain. In fact, his emotions contained some form of muted excited —something we usually didn't see. He replied, "The Royal Engineers detonated one of their mines just a little into No-Man's-Land. It kicked up some debris and I got caught in the shoulder by a tangle of barbed wire."

I pursed my lips as I threaded a needle. As much as I supported the use of static warfare in the trenches, couldn't they be a little more careful in setting off explosions, or even warn some of us beforehand? These thoughts and others were forgotten, however, when an unconscious man was brought to us. Piper shooed the less injured officers to the side, out of the way, so we could make room for the man who soon took up residence on our table. Those who had brought him to us couldn't explain what was wrong with him. He wasn't bleeding from anywhere and didn't seem to have any sort of outside trauma, yet he was unconscious.

Will noted our new patient's erratic heartbeat before launching into a series of questions. "Did he have any symptoms before he passed out?"

The men shrugged as I monitored the patient's arrhythmia. Will listed off a series of indicators for Effector Syndrome—more commonly referred to as a heart attack.

"Chest pain, vomiting, shortness of breath?"

"He did say that his chest hurt and that he couldn't catch his breath—"

"He's tachycardic." I said as I kept close attention to his pulse. He hadn't gone into cardiac arrest yet, and if he did, there wasn't a thing we could do to help. "Piper, get the—"

"Aspirin? Already got it." She crushed a tablet of acetylsalicyclic acid into a fine powder and mixed it with water. Though the drug was only a few years old, Aspirin had shown promising effects on the remission of fever and inflammation*. A lot of doctors had started using it as a "catch-all", and while I didn't normally like to operate on those standards, I had seen that Aspirin had helped heart attack victims, not only in their recovery, but in their pain level too.

Will and Piper worked together to force the watery mixture down the unconscious soldier's throat while I wrote out a short medical report. There was no telling when the man would wake up—if he would at all. My notes would travel with him to the hospital in Etaples. He would arrive just a few days earlier than I would. With that thought, our shift ended, and Piper, Will, and I cleared out to go get food before settling in for the night. And I found myself, again, thinking of my nearing meeting with Percy, the only thing keeping me going anymore.

*Aspirin was first made in 1899, and was used often in WWI as it had been put into tablet form by then and could easily be given to soldiers. It was later confirmed in the second half of the 20th century that Aspirin could be used in the prevention of a heart attack because of its capabilities as a blood thinner.