—back in overalls and baggy sweater, Josie landed in the mud, hard, beside a broken gramophone, horn painted to resemble a scarlet poppy. Panting, she propped herself on her hands, pieces of a shattered record digging into them.
Where the Hell was she?
Poppies gone, Josie stared wildly around her at the gray landscape of dirt and tangled barbed wire which stank of burnt garlic and death. Near her lay a helmet, not like the one she dimly remembered Uncle Mike wearing when he was still active duty, but with a wide, circular brim surrounding a low, rounded dome. Or it would have, had it not been blown out into a steel crown made of knives.
Shuddering, Josie averted her eyes, one hand unconsciously rising to her mouth, remembering overhearing Uncle Mike telling Aunt Raina about his last deployment somewhere in the Gulf when she was little, when they thought she was asleep (No you didn't. Shut up!)
Hopefully whoever'd been wearing the helmet had died fast.
A distant, slowly approaching rumble distracted Josie. She frowned, artillery? Like when Uncle Mike was stationed at Camp Lejune and the artillery guys were up in the hills practice-firing live rounds?
Something told Josie that this wasn't practice as the heavy noise crept towards her, a strong smell, like 4th of July fireworks oozing through the heavy, still air.
Time to move, but where?
Remembering Uncle Mike's story about how two children riding a donkey found the Iraqi minefield Uncle Mike and his squad were guarding until the bomb dudes came and the awful thing that happened no matter how much he yelled at them to turn back, Josie cautiously picked her way across the cratered earth through tangles of barbed wire away from the rumble, hoping that she didn't end up like those kids and their donkey, only to suddenly fall face-first into the muck, one ankle on fire.
Gasping, Josie rolled over, frantically trying to free herself from a silvery loop of wire, only to freeze.
Dream or not, this was a battlefield. What if this was attached to some sort of explosive and she set it off?
Oh God, what would Uncle Mike do? He was the one trained to deal with this sort of shit, not her!
Josie looked at her feet, long, low thunder growing louder. Her thin sock was now soaked with blood from where the wire sliced her ankle open.
She began hyperventilating, crying for help, but no one could hear her as what sounded like machine guns going off added to the rising din to the smell of burnt garlic.
Gurllllll, get a hand on yerself. What would Uncle Mike do?
Josie forced herself to calm down. (Think-think-think!) Uncle Mike and Aunt Raina once took her out to a field behind base housing and told her to get down, hold still, and hug the Earth if she ever found herself in a situation where some fool got crazy with a gun at school like those two assholes had, and this was about as crazy as you could get as something whizzed overhead and splattered against a pile of leaky sandbags that looked like a wall little kids had built.
Josie screamed, face pressed into the mud, only to come up coughing and spitting, to go right back in the mud as another splatter of lead whizzed overhead… be calm, stay calm, things could be worse…
Only, Josie heard a noise from out of nowhere, a whistle, like something Narancia would blow on to annoy the music teacher during attendance just because he could.
"All right lads, fix bayonets… raise ladders…look alive, look alive, we're going over the top—"
What? There are people here?
Followed by hissing and distant cries of "Gas! Gas! All right lads, gas masks. Gas masks! Steady… steady! Hold steady, on the ladders, on the ladders, gas mask lads! Gas masks!"
Eyes streaming, skin itching Josie coughed, lungs on fire and eyes stinging as a dirty brown mist slowly spilled into the water-filled crater where she lay trapped.
"You daft, Miss? Get th' Hell of that shell hole, gas settles there!" Someone exclaimed. Josie suddenly found herself roughly yanked upright by one arm and set down beside the crater by a stranger in a gas mask, the silvery wire snapping audibly. "Oh my God, where's your gas mask? Where's you're mask Miss? Why don't you have a mask?"
Ankle freed, Josie backed away in panic, only to have a greasy canvas bag yanked over her head – only the bag had two glass holes and the stench of burning garlic had subside somewhat – a gas mask? Eyes streaming, she struggled and then relaxed, now slung over whoever gave her the mask's shoulder as he staggered beneath her weight, stepping over barbed wire and half a dead body that gaped foolishly up at the dull sky towards the wall of sandbags,
"Put me down, I can run!" she yelled, muffled by her borrowed mask.
"Not as fast as I can, Miss!" came the equally muffled reply.
Something large and fast roared overhead trailing heat, followed by a gout of burning mud splattering them. Josie screamed, trying to squirm free, then stopped.
Was this what Uncle Mike's job had been like? No wonder he's so quiet!
Brown mist swirling around them, Josie's rescuer rapidly ascended a rough flight of stairs made from broken boards and sandbags.
A door slammed. Whoever it was carrying her, dropped her onto a dirt floor.
Josie looked around her in the deafening silence from where she landed as if through two tiny portholes. Her eyes and skin stopped burning as if the gas had never happened.
"You can ta-take the mask off now." The voice that came at her through the mask was high and raspy, like a starling's. "'S safe an' all, in here, I mean. Gas means nothing in the safety cupboard."
Safety cupboard?
Nervously looking around her dingy new surroundings, Josie rose, nervously pulling off the stale-smelling canvas mask and held it in both hands after untangling its many straps from her locs. "We're underground. I thought you said gas settled in low places."
"Safety cupboard's safe, Miss." Whoever it was crouched at her feet politely wiping the mud from her shoes with what looked like the remains of a wedding dress, before rising, pulling off his flat, wide-brimmed helmet, and peeling his mask away from his face.
In spite of the situation, Josie gasped. Good God, he looked like David Bowie!
"Tommy Andrews! At your service, Miss!" The very messy David Bowie held out a long, spindly hand for Josie to shake. She ignored it, feeling dizzy. He looked somebody had dragged the Thin White Duke himself backwards through the mud after an outdoor concert held in a downpour. Only he wasn't David Bowie, but somebody named Tommy… aaaand…
"Where am I, uhhhh, Tommy?" Josie gasped.
"You should know." He said in the same high, raspy chirp that didn't match his appearance, "You were the one frolicking around no-man's land with Lili Marleen – Miss, no man's land's no good for anyone, not even Hubert!"
Josie looked wildly around the dug-out, "I got lost." She looked down at her feet where the helmet lay beside her ruined white platformed Adidas. It looked like a crown of thorns… where had she seen that before?
"Well, I can see that." The man who called himself Tommy Andrews and looked like David Bowie gestured around him, "Safety cupboard's not exactly, cough, ('scuse me), Glassmother's best sitting room, but it's safe!"
Studying him in the dim, flickering of a dozen lit kerosene lamps, Josie could tell Tommy was barely older than she, perhaps nineteen or twenty. Only he had dark circles around his big, round eyes like an old man.
He blinked, and they were normal blue eyes, tired, but friendly, almost shy.
She backed away from her rescuer, saying, "Okay Tom, Tommy. Can ya get me outta here Thomas?"
"That's what I am, a Tommy. But I'm also, well, a Thomas, Thomas Midford-Andrews, only Glassmother says it's improper for someone like me to…, ah, excuse me will you?" He paused and hunching over, covered his mouth with a dark-stained rag in a violent coughing spell, the reek of burnt garlic and a strange dead smell wafting around him almost visibly. "Anyway, I'm Thomas, Private Thomas Andrews, at your service, Miss." Tommy straightened, coughing fit over, "Sorry about the cough. Can't be helped. Not in my condition." He added apologetically, staring absently down at the blown-out helmet now cradled in his odd-looking hands. "I thought I threw this away, but it keeps coming back…" Tommy's eyes went blank, the helmet landing with a soft clang on the packed dirt floor. "It all went belly up in '16… Flers-Courcelette… the Somme… blew me clean out of me boots, it did. Landed in a shell hole… the pain, I'll never forget the pain… still have it, quite used to it… don't like remembering this bit, keeps sneaking back tho' … still feel the pain… (COUGH!) ...should have died… want to die… he should have protected me, we were FAMILY!"
Trying to distract Tommy or whoever he was before he completely zoned out, Josie cocked an eyebrow, took a deep breath, and like Aunt Raina firmly asking Jeremy who got into the kitchen trash, asked, "What's a Tommy? Uncle Mike's retired a Major or something like that. Is Tommy some sort of a soldier?"
"What? Eh? Ohhhhh, I see. Yan- I mean, Amer-i-can." Distracted, Tommy smiled like he didn't do it very often, "Private Tommy Andrews, at your service. Do you need me to… to escort you back t-to your ambulance, Miss?"
"Ambulance?"
"Yes, of course, you're Red Cross, a driver and all that, correct?" He squinted, suddenly suspicious, saying, "Bit dark for, for an ambulance driver—"
Trying hard not to be offended, Josie interrupted him, "If it's all right with you, I want to go home." Now, where did that door get off too? She'd just seen it!
"Oh, then. Might be Jeremy F.'s lit'l sister. You're a refugee, then?" Tommy looked puzzled, the yellow of the myriad lamps staining his face a strange green. "No, no, no… must be French, dark an' all, parley-vous? But… wheeeeeeeeez (Excuse me, here I go again, COUGH!), we don't get pretty girls out here much, forget my manners, musn't stare, mustn't stare...oh deeeeeeaaaaarrrrrrr."
Now beet red, Tommy gave a rueful glance downward at himself before giving her the side-eye, "Be nice not to be the girl for once… NOT that someone in my condition could do much with a pretty girl…?" He trailed off sadly to nobody, twiddling his odd-looking fingers. "Glassmother would be so very pleased. Always said it was Satan's business… better off without that sort of thing, don't you know? Only I miss it, I miss it a lot."
Did he just… is he? Gross! Mental gears sticking and then unsticking, Josie froze mid-nervous search of the dugout and stared open-mouthed at Tommy, Chill! Chill! Get me outta here! Chill! Chill!, So THIS is why Uncle Mike warned me about men. Chill! Chill! – this ain't Fugo... I have GOT to get AWAY from this dude!
It's just a dream. Distract him with something shiny and he'll let you go home.
Closing her mouth, Josie quickly searched the pockets of her overalls, and with an exclamation of relief, pulled out a handful of colorful plastic beads she'd planned to give to Clawdeen's littlest cousins. "Here." She said, "Have half of these. If you get me outta here, I'll give you the rest."
"No, he won't like it, he'll kick me again if I do." Tommy shook his head, dropping his hands to his sides and stared down at her cupped hand. Suddenly he blinked, eyes too far apart for his face, "Don't like being kicked... these? For me? Really?"
"Yeah." She grabbed his hand, which didn't feel like it looked, cupped it, and dropped the beads into his palm, adding, "If you show me how to go home, I'll give you the rest."
Reddening again, Tommy slipped them into one of his pockets, "I'd love to give you something in return, Miss." He cocked his unruly head, chirping, "Only everything's full of woodlice. Anyway, Marjory Stewart-Baxter would be jealous. Marjory likes pressies, you know. She doesn't get many. Pressies mean an awful lot to Marjorie. She never gets many…?"
"Strictly. Business." Josie said, trying not to snap at him, "I want to go home, is all."
"Right. Strictly business." Tommy, the remains of the man who inspired Tolkien's greatest work slunk behind a ratty curtain. "Won't be a mo', Miss."