Wounded
Disclaimer: I do not own the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego franchise.
~ ~ ~ ~
March 2142: Again we are pushed back, marching across the dunes to another line of trenches and prepared positions with our backs to the border between Libya and Egypt. Again, we are filling holes in our ranks with replacements that die all too frequently within their first forty-eight hours on the line.
We as veterans are not immune ourselves. Yesterday Fressan disappeared on sentry duty. He was walking his post along the fence line of a small ammunition depot behind the lines at midnight and was never heard from again.
I join a patrol to search for him; chances are he is not alive after having disappeared six hours ago. My stomach groans with hunger, rations are in short supply and even with Kat's expert scrounging food is scarce. Wiersbowski and Kat are behind me, knowing that our small group is reduced yet again to three men. We at least owe it to him to find his body instead of letting it rot in the desert or, God forbid, turn into a zombie.
We find him four hours later, as the sun begins to raise high in the noon sky. He is lying in a shallow wadi, there are several bite marks around his body and there is scant little flesh on his right forearm. He looks as though he has been served at a banquet, but it is his eyes that are ghastly. They are empty of the life within, but I can still feel the pure terror he must have felt as the Gollums dragged him across the desert and tossed him into a crowd of zombies. All of his ammunition is still on his body, indicating he was surprised without having fired a shot. I remove his magazines from his pouches and place them in my own. In the no-man's land you can never have too much ammunition. It is then that Fressan's corpse begins to move, as though it were subtly prodded with a stick.
I am aghast at this sight; his eyes are dead still though his body moves. His face is a slack and mindless stare, where it once was frozen in terror, a veritable death mask. I raise my rifle as he advances towards me. I still find it hard to remember that all he sees of me is food and that the man that was once Fressan, the personality is gone and dead. One of my good friends at ACME, one of the three who accompanied me to the recruiting station to volunteer for the Army, is now among the walking dead. Despite this I find it surprisingly hard to shoot him. I remember being told by our battalion commander that we would encounter comrades who have turned into zombies and not hesitating to shoot them. "Believe me; you're doing them a favor." He said.
I am horrified to see Fressan in this state; he was the ardent partier among our ranks, a man who would stay out until all hours at various clubs, a vital and alive individual. All of this is now gone as I stare at the zombie; Fressan is now a mere shell of himself, not dead but not truly alive either. My rifle is leveled, wavering.
"Shoot him!" Sergeant McCron shouts, "God damn it Gallatin, shoot him!"
At this harshly barked order my hesitation breaks and I open fire. The round goes right through Fressan's forehead, exiting out the back of his skull from five meters away. He falls to the ground, twitching at my feet. Sadly I pull one of his dog tags from his body.
Atop the cliff, Wiersbowski puts a hand on my shoulder, "Fressan would have wanted us to that for him. Remember he said he would rather die than shamble across the dunes as a zombie."
"Did anyone else die today?" I ask Wiersbowski.
"Two more of the guys who enlisted with us from ACME back in the day." Wiersbowski replies, "Did you hear D'Arco joined the Rangers?"
"No." I reply. Armand D'Arco was a lean, gentle natured Frenchman who worked at ACME with us. He was also two years too young to have joined the Army with us. The 4th and 2nd Ranger Battalions are the spearhead for a force preparing to come to our aid as we did for the Libyans, Egyptians and Sicilians fighting here.
From the east, a new biohazard has broken out in Morocco. Soldiers of the 47th Tunisian Armored Division, 9th Algerian Light Infantry Division, and 17th Moroccan Infantry Division are fighting to contain it, and it is not believed to be serious. Still I do wish the Rangers would hurry up with their training and land in Africa, lending fresh troops to our battered and battle scarred veterans.
We barely have returned to our own lines before a barrage ensues, throwing corpses airborne. An energy orb explodes by my side, throwing me and Wiersbowski into the air. I am thrown onto the desert floor and feel spreading warmth as well as both sharp and dull pains.
I drift in and out of consciousness as I hear the call for "Medic!" from Wiersbowski, who is apparently not as badly injured as I.
I hear voices around me, some of them are real, and others come from the depths of my mind, a mind wracked by shock, confusion and pain.
"Staunch that blood flow." Pierce directs.
"Wiersbowski, are you alright?" Kat asks.
"Gallatin, can you hear me?" Sergeant McCron asks.
"Get those stretchers over here, pronto!" Pierce yells.
"Wiersbowski, can you walk?" Sergeant McCron asks.
"Yeah sarge, but not very fast, my leg feels funny." Wiersbowski replies.
It is quite a long time later before I regain some semblance of consciousness because I can see stars in the sky.
"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Andi asks me.
At first I think I am dead, because only the dead can see the dead. But the pressure dressings on my right arm and my right leg throb painfully and I am obviously alive, or clinging to the last vestiges of life.
I feel myself start to fade, a young man shy of his twentieth birthday, but then I hear words from beyond.
"Martin, I miss you, but people need you alive now." Andi says, her voice fading like fog before the rising sun.
"It's not your time, brother." David, my younger brother says.
"Please don't die Martin, it's not time for you yet. You have so much to experience." Andi pleads.
And this alone forces my eyes open. I see myself in a hospital bed somewhere far from the front. I do not hear the sound of guns. I peer outside the window and do not see the North African desert, but rolling hills and dry scrub terrain. "Where am I?" I ask a medic.
The medic, a sergeant with an uncharacteristically cherubic face and very likely not a combat medic, "You're in a hospital in Salerno."
"How long was I out?" I ask.
"At least a week. You came close to buying it soldier, welcome back." Sergeant Wade, the medic, replies.
I see Wiersbowski sleeping soundly in the bed next to me. He has bandages around his forehead, numerous cuts and bruises and his arm in an elevated sling. My own arm is encased in plaster, as is my leg.
An orderly walks by my bed to give me breakfast. I recognize him instantly, "Gavin?"
The lean private turns towards me, "Martin? Are you feeling better?"
"This young man has been coming by your bed every single day to check on you." Wade informs me.
"An orderly, I volunteered for combat duty and they stick me as far away from the front as possible." Gavin replies.
He doesn't know what he's asking for, seeing your friends die before your eyes, being subject to near constant attacks by inhuman floods of enemy soldiers across the no man's land, constant marches along the route of our former victories, and the sight of many cemeteries springing up on the desert like weeds in a choking lawn. Yet I understand why he wants to go to the front because his reason is the same as my own. Revenge, pure and simple revenge is his reason.
I try to avoid talking of the current military situation here in the Mediterranean and Europe. Central Europe, France, Finland and Norway are either almost entirely overrun if not completely overrun by biohazards. The north of Italy is not immune as well as the 14th Swiss Infantry Division, and the 176th Italian Infantry Division are barely holding off the horrific invasion that has ravaged much of Switzerland and Germany and is spreading into the European Mediterranean. France is almost entirely overrun, Denmark and Sweden are barely holding out and the Balkan states are preparing for Operation Counterpunch, to take place in mid 2143. It is an offensive designed to contain and destroy the creatures ravaging Eastern Europe.
All around me I see stunned, broken men, damaged and destroyed from the fighting going on around the world. I even see the patch of the 5th South American Brigade, a hodgepodge detachment of soldiers, most of them reservists and draftees from Argentina and Chile, sent to fight off the growing Biohazard infestation around the Amazon River area.
The soldier whose patch bears this unit, one of a condor valiantly battling a multi-headed snake across a white background contained within a heraldic shield, is Private Hernan Castanza from Buenos Aires. He is a thirty year old gentleman with a small child and a wife who he relocated to Patagonia when the Biohazard struck South America last year.
I finger a handful of dog tags in my pockets. The names of the men these once belonged to burned into my mind, Rhett Garland, "Pilgrim" Strauch, Michael Morerro, and Gerard Fressan. All of these men are now dead, strewn in makeshift graves across the North African desert at cemeteries belonging to the 15th Light Infantry Division.
Gavin has walked out into the hallway; he is upset that I am so uncommunicative. I hear other voices just then, not merely of the six of us convalescents who share this room. I hear Zack and Ivy talking with Gavin and Brianna in the hall.
I see the lot of them walk inside towards my sick bed. I imagine I must be a pathetic sight to them, a bandaged, broken man, and a survivor of a campaign in North Africa that is turning sour for the soldiers fighting it.
I feel sorry for them for they have had to pass through the hospital to find me, seeing the maimed men from campaigns all around the world. I especially pity poor Brianna, for not only does she me in this state but she has also seen too soon the effects of war. She also sees men that will never be whole again because of this great plague upon mankind.
I gaze upon them with sad and knowing eyes, especially seeing Brianna, she is growing to resemble Andi and this alone tugs my spirits down. She gives me a get well soon card and I open it. The contents nearly bring tears to my eyes as I weep unashamedly in front of fellow soldiers. In a frame of lace and home made artwork is a picture of Andi at her high school prom with me in uniform.
"Andi worried about you every day." Brianna says, "She checked the newspaper's casualty reports and went to the information kiosk on campus at noon just to make sure you were alright."
"I remember the day that they reported you missing and possibly dead. Andi wouldn't leave her room for a whole day until we found out you were still alive." Gavin replied.
"She would have wanted you to move on with your life Martin." Ivy replies.
What life do they mean? Certainly life on the front is not what they mean. I'm going to fight to the bitter end, the Army and my unit will see to that. I may not even be alive when I return to the front.
There is a long and uncomfortable silence, "Do you ever feel that Andi's still with us?"
My grief bubbles under my implacable façade, as Gavin continues, "Yesterday I sent a letter home addressed to her. Right after I sent it, I realized that she's no longer with us."
"Just say dead for God's sake if you're going to bring it up!" I reply sharply.
"Martin, I know it hurts." Gavin replies.
"Burn in hell!" I shout, "You don't know how much it hurts! My love for her gave me knowledge that I had something other than survival to look forward to. Now all I have is vengeance!"
In uncharacteristic anger Gavin replies, "You ungrateful bastard! She was my sister too. I know she was a lover to you and that you loved her deeply but imagine my grief on knowing that a sweet and innocent girl is dead. I cannot avenge her. You know what my drill sergeant said during basic, 'Private Ryvers' inept weapon's handling, poor attention to detail, and inability to master basic soldiering renders him fit to rear echelon work.' I want to fight! I want to avenge her!"
This softens my rage as I reply, "Put in a transfer, and ask for Sergeant Dibernardo, weapon's platoon on Sicily, he should help you brush up your weapons skills and get you transferred to a combat zone and the infantry. If you can't get North Africa, I would recommend Europe or the Pacific, you don't want to wind up in the South American theater."
"I know that, I see a lot of the wounded that come here from various theaters. I remember one poor lad who was missing his left arm at the shoulder and his leg had to be broken back into place." Gavin replies, "Thank you Martin, I'll leave you to your rest."
And so he does and I remain at my sickbed for now. I idly watch the news of the North African theater. We are fighting a steady withdrawal along the King's Highway, exchanging fire with fierce rearguard actions. We fortify various towns along the way while the rearguard delays the opposing contingents. It is a brilliant strategy, but from my experience it is a telling drain on manpower and resources of Army Corps Africa.
Wiersbowski, Kat, and myself are the only original Africans of No. 4 Barracks alive now where there were once seven of us. I look at all of the men in the room now. Of those of us that heal and are sent to the front again, how many of us will emerge alive and whole from this cruel conflict?
Disclaimer: I do not own the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego franchise.
~ ~ ~ ~
March 2142: Again we are pushed back, marching across the dunes to another line of trenches and prepared positions with our backs to the border between Libya and Egypt. Again, we are filling holes in our ranks with replacements that die all too frequently within their first forty-eight hours on the line.
We as veterans are not immune ourselves. Yesterday Fressan disappeared on sentry duty. He was walking his post along the fence line of a small ammunition depot behind the lines at midnight and was never heard from again.
I join a patrol to search for him; chances are he is not alive after having disappeared six hours ago. My stomach groans with hunger, rations are in short supply and even with Kat's expert scrounging food is scarce. Wiersbowski and Kat are behind me, knowing that our small group is reduced yet again to three men. We at least owe it to him to find his body instead of letting it rot in the desert or, God forbid, turn into a zombie.
We find him four hours later, as the sun begins to raise high in the noon sky. He is lying in a shallow wadi, there are several bite marks around his body and there is scant little flesh on his right forearm. He looks as though he has been served at a banquet, but it is his eyes that are ghastly. They are empty of the life within, but I can still feel the pure terror he must have felt as the Gollums dragged him across the desert and tossed him into a crowd of zombies. All of his ammunition is still on his body, indicating he was surprised without having fired a shot. I remove his magazines from his pouches and place them in my own. In the no-man's land you can never have too much ammunition. It is then that Fressan's corpse begins to move, as though it were subtly prodded with a stick.
I am aghast at this sight; his eyes are dead still though his body moves. His face is a slack and mindless stare, where it once was frozen in terror, a veritable death mask. I raise my rifle as he advances towards me. I still find it hard to remember that all he sees of me is food and that the man that was once Fressan, the personality is gone and dead. One of my good friends at ACME, one of the three who accompanied me to the recruiting station to volunteer for the Army, is now among the walking dead. Despite this I find it surprisingly hard to shoot him. I remember being told by our battalion commander that we would encounter comrades who have turned into zombies and not hesitating to shoot them. "Believe me; you're doing them a favor." He said.
I am horrified to see Fressan in this state; he was the ardent partier among our ranks, a man who would stay out until all hours at various clubs, a vital and alive individual. All of this is now gone as I stare at the zombie; Fressan is now a mere shell of himself, not dead but not truly alive either. My rifle is leveled, wavering.
"Shoot him!" Sergeant McCron shouts, "God damn it Gallatin, shoot him!"
At this harshly barked order my hesitation breaks and I open fire. The round goes right through Fressan's forehead, exiting out the back of his skull from five meters away. He falls to the ground, twitching at my feet. Sadly I pull one of his dog tags from his body.
Atop the cliff, Wiersbowski puts a hand on my shoulder, "Fressan would have wanted us to that for him. Remember he said he would rather die than shamble across the dunes as a zombie."
"Did anyone else die today?" I ask Wiersbowski.
"Two more of the guys who enlisted with us from ACME back in the day." Wiersbowski replies, "Did you hear D'Arco joined the Rangers?"
"No." I reply. Armand D'Arco was a lean, gentle natured Frenchman who worked at ACME with us. He was also two years too young to have joined the Army with us. The 4th and 2nd Ranger Battalions are the spearhead for a force preparing to come to our aid as we did for the Libyans, Egyptians and Sicilians fighting here.
From the east, a new biohazard has broken out in Morocco. Soldiers of the 47th Tunisian Armored Division, 9th Algerian Light Infantry Division, and 17th Moroccan Infantry Division are fighting to contain it, and it is not believed to be serious. Still I do wish the Rangers would hurry up with their training and land in Africa, lending fresh troops to our battered and battle scarred veterans.
We barely have returned to our own lines before a barrage ensues, throwing corpses airborne. An energy orb explodes by my side, throwing me and Wiersbowski into the air. I am thrown onto the desert floor and feel spreading warmth as well as both sharp and dull pains.
I drift in and out of consciousness as I hear the call for "Medic!" from Wiersbowski, who is apparently not as badly injured as I.
I hear voices around me, some of them are real, and others come from the depths of my mind, a mind wracked by shock, confusion and pain.
"Staunch that blood flow." Pierce directs.
"Wiersbowski, are you alright?" Kat asks.
"Gallatin, can you hear me?" Sergeant McCron asks.
"Get those stretchers over here, pronto!" Pierce yells.
"Wiersbowski, can you walk?" Sergeant McCron asks.
"Yeah sarge, but not very fast, my leg feels funny." Wiersbowski replies.
It is quite a long time later before I regain some semblance of consciousness because I can see stars in the sky.
"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Andi asks me.
At first I think I am dead, because only the dead can see the dead. But the pressure dressings on my right arm and my right leg throb painfully and I am obviously alive, or clinging to the last vestiges of life.
I feel myself start to fade, a young man shy of his twentieth birthday, but then I hear words from beyond.
"Martin, I miss you, but people need you alive now." Andi says, her voice fading like fog before the rising sun.
"It's not your time, brother." David, my younger brother says.
"Please don't die Martin, it's not time for you yet. You have so much to experience." Andi pleads.
And this alone forces my eyes open. I see myself in a hospital bed somewhere far from the front. I do not hear the sound of guns. I peer outside the window and do not see the North African desert, but rolling hills and dry scrub terrain. "Where am I?" I ask a medic.
The medic, a sergeant with an uncharacteristically cherubic face and very likely not a combat medic, "You're in a hospital in Salerno."
"How long was I out?" I ask.
"At least a week. You came close to buying it soldier, welcome back." Sergeant Wade, the medic, replies.
I see Wiersbowski sleeping soundly in the bed next to me. He has bandages around his forehead, numerous cuts and bruises and his arm in an elevated sling. My own arm is encased in plaster, as is my leg.
An orderly walks by my bed to give me breakfast. I recognize him instantly, "Gavin?"
The lean private turns towards me, "Martin? Are you feeling better?"
"This young man has been coming by your bed every single day to check on you." Wade informs me.
"An orderly, I volunteered for combat duty and they stick me as far away from the front as possible." Gavin replies.
He doesn't know what he's asking for, seeing your friends die before your eyes, being subject to near constant attacks by inhuman floods of enemy soldiers across the no man's land, constant marches along the route of our former victories, and the sight of many cemeteries springing up on the desert like weeds in a choking lawn. Yet I understand why he wants to go to the front because his reason is the same as my own. Revenge, pure and simple revenge is his reason.
I try to avoid talking of the current military situation here in the Mediterranean and Europe. Central Europe, France, Finland and Norway are either almost entirely overrun if not completely overrun by biohazards. The north of Italy is not immune as well as the 14th Swiss Infantry Division, and the 176th Italian Infantry Division are barely holding off the horrific invasion that has ravaged much of Switzerland and Germany and is spreading into the European Mediterranean. France is almost entirely overrun, Denmark and Sweden are barely holding out and the Balkan states are preparing for Operation Counterpunch, to take place in mid 2143. It is an offensive designed to contain and destroy the creatures ravaging Eastern Europe.
All around me I see stunned, broken men, damaged and destroyed from the fighting going on around the world. I even see the patch of the 5th South American Brigade, a hodgepodge detachment of soldiers, most of them reservists and draftees from Argentina and Chile, sent to fight off the growing Biohazard infestation around the Amazon River area.
The soldier whose patch bears this unit, one of a condor valiantly battling a multi-headed snake across a white background contained within a heraldic shield, is Private Hernan Castanza from Buenos Aires. He is a thirty year old gentleman with a small child and a wife who he relocated to Patagonia when the Biohazard struck South America last year.
I finger a handful of dog tags in my pockets. The names of the men these once belonged to burned into my mind, Rhett Garland, "Pilgrim" Strauch, Michael Morerro, and Gerard Fressan. All of these men are now dead, strewn in makeshift graves across the North African desert at cemeteries belonging to the 15th Light Infantry Division.
Gavin has walked out into the hallway; he is upset that I am so uncommunicative. I hear other voices just then, not merely of the six of us convalescents who share this room. I hear Zack and Ivy talking with Gavin and Brianna in the hall.
I see the lot of them walk inside towards my sick bed. I imagine I must be a pathetic sight to them, a bandaged, broken man, and a survivor of a campaign in North Africa that is turning sour for the soldiers fighting it.
I feel sorry for them for they have had to pass through the hospital to find me, seeing the maimed men from campaigns all around the world. I especially pity poor Brianna, for not only does she me in this state but she has also seen too soon the effects of war. She also sees men that will never be whole again because of this great plague upon mankind.
I gaze upon them with sad and knowing eyes, especially seeing Brianna, she is growing to resemble Andi and this alone tugs my spirits down. She gives me a get well soon card and I open it. The contents nearly bring tears to my eyes as I weep unashamedly in front of fellow soldiers. In a frame of lace and home made artwork is a picture of Andi at her high school prom with me in uniform.
"Andi worried about you every day." Brianna says, "She checked the newspaper's casualty reports and went to the information kiosk on campus at noon just to make sure you were alright."
"I remember the day that they reported you missing and possibly dead. Andi wouldn't leave her room for a whole day until we found out you were still alive." Gavin replied.
"She would have wanted you to move on with your life Martin." Ivy replies.
What life do they mean? Certainly life on the front is not what they mean. I'm going to fight to the bitter end, the Army and my unit will see to that. I may not even be alive when I return to the front.
There is a long and uncomfortable silence, "Do you ever feel that Andi's still with us?"
My grief bubbles under my implacable façade, as Gavin continues, "Yesterday I sent a letter home addressed to her. Right after I sent it, I realized that she's no longer with us."
"Just say dead for God's sake if you're going to bring it up!" I reply sharply.
"Martin, I know it hurts." Gavin replies.
"Burn in hell!" I shout, "You don't know how much it hurts! My love for her gave me knowledge that I had something other than survival to look forward to. Now all I have is vengeance!"
In uncharacteristic anger Gavin replies, "You ungrateful bastard! She was my sister too. I know she was a lover to you and that you loved her deeply but imagine my grief on knowing that a sweet and innocent girl is dead. I cannot avenge her. You know what my drill sergeant said during basic, 'Private Ryvers' inept weapon's handling, poor attention to detail, and inability to master basic soldiering renders him fit to rear echelon work.' I want to fight! I want to avenge her!"
This softens my rage as I reply, "Put in a transfer, and ask for Sergeant Dibernardo, weapon's platoon on Sicily, he should help you brush up your weapons skills and get you transferred to a combat zone and the infantry. If you can't get North Africa, I would recommend Europe or the Pacific, you don't want to wind up in the South American theater."
"I know that, I see a lot of the wounded that come here from various theaters. I remember one poor lad who was missing his left arm at the shoulder and his leg had to be broken back into place." Gavin replies, "Thank you Martin, I'll leave you to your rest."
And so he does and I remain at my sickbed for now. I idly watch the news of the North African theater. We are fighting a steady withdrawal along the King's Highway, exchanging fire with fierce rearguard actions. We fortify various towns along the way while the rearguard delays the opposing contingents. It is a brilliant strategy, but from my experience it is a telling drain on manpower and resources of Army Corps Africa.
Wiersbowski, Kat, and myself are the only original Africans of No. 4 Barracks alive now where there were once seven of us. I look at all of the men in the room now. Of those of us that heal and are sent to the front again, how many of us will emerge alive and whole from this cruel conflict?