His Squad Now, Chapter 2, The Least Among Many

Consciousness returned slowly, tiny faltering steps and even those too hurried to be acceptable by any means.

The last things he remembered, clearly, were the cave, the damp lonely emptiness of ancient memories, Harrison Blackwood's arm around his waist steadying unsure footsteps…and a sudden flash of kaleidoscopic colors. A thousand fireworks burst behind his eyes – a combination of the 4th of July, the lightening storms back in Oklahoma that flashed and burned and threatened rain but were all show, and an artillery barrage in Vietnam, seen from a too close OP in a black otherworldly night – these images in less than a heartbeat and all at once. Paul Ironhorse had time to utter a single word at the display, "God!" and that was all.

He woke in a hospital, strange faces above him, moving quickly in and out of his very limited line of vision. He couldn't talk, couldn't respond to questions in a language he couldn't comprehend.

Finally a face he recognized – Harrison Blackwood's – stark white, anxious and a question in English. "Paul, can you hear me?"

Ironhorse nodded and even that sent the room into a tail spin and his head into the vice-like grip of razored pain. He closed his eyes and tried to absorb what Harrison was explaining to him, but he caught only bits and pieces.

"Paris hospital. Blood clot on the brain. Surgery…soon."

He felt Blackwood squeeze his hand; felt the coldness of Harrison's skin, the tremors, his or Blackwood's? Then he felt nothing. He was careening down a lightless tunnel. It was only an impression since the darkness was absolute, but he kept banging into the walls as he spiralled lower, out of control, tumbling heels over head.

When he woke this time it was not to hospital smells – disinfectant, remnants of the last meal, stale close air, but to the chill of the outdoors, of late fall and the scent of pine, fallen leaves and snow…and mixed it with all the lingering scent of gunpowder, but the face above him was just as foreign and the language at least as difficult to understand. Instead of French it was German.

"Er is nicht tot!"

Uncaring hands unfastened his web belt, unbuckled the sheath that held the long-bladed knife close against his left thigh, jerking both free. Ironhorse bit back a sharp groan as pain burst through his head at the rough treatment. He heard another voice – Doc's, raised in anger, from somewhere off to his left.

Ironhorse's hands were pulled away as he cradled his pounding head, his collar yanked away from his throat, fingered by grubby hands. Another sentence in guttural German and a phrase he understood, "Der Oberstleutnant!"

A blanket was hastily thrown over him and a familiar face appeared. Doc searched his newly returned knapsack and withdrew a handful of gauze squares, wiping blood from the colonel's mouth and nose.

"Concussion from the artillery round, Sir. Lie still."

It was more than easy for Ironhorse to do as he was told. The pain behind his eyes was blinding, and he was having an inordinate amount of difficulty making out what Doc was saying. However, he found if he concentrated hard enough, most of it made sense.

"We've been captured, Colonel. The squad put up a good fight, but what with you out…and Sarge…Kirby got hit, not too seriously, but the wound bled a lot. Finally there just wasn't any ammo left. Before they got us Caje busted up your rifle and Sarge's Thompson. They…" he inclined his head back over his shoulder to the Germans standing guard over the men, "won't be usin' 'em."

Doc finished cleaning the blood from the colonel's face, took out his pen light and flicked it into the officer's eyes. Ironhorse flinched at the white beam like a stream of laser light burning through each eye and into his brain.

"Sorry, Sir," Doc apologized, unhappy with the sluggish, irregular response of the colonel's pupils to the stimulus. Gently the medic elevated the officer's head feeling the scalp for bumps or contusions. He found none and drew the German-provided blanket up to cover his patient. He leaned close and spoke quietly in confidence.

"When they found out you were a colonel they got real excited. Got right on the radio. I don't speak German, but I pretty much got the drift. This lieutenant here, he knows he got himself a prize. Probably thinks like we did when we found you…what's a colonel doin' out here, leading a squad? My guess and Caje agrees – they think we're a special operations team out here for some big deal reason. Their superiors want to know why and what that reason is. They'll be sending a ranking officer out quick to question you.

"They started treating us with respect, gave us blankets and let me treat you and Kirby. Even gave us soup and hot coffee."

Doc settled himself next to the colonel on the ground. Around the medic Ironhorse could see the squad, all alive, lined up in a row about a meter apart, heavily guarded, most resting back against trees or rocks, each exhausted. All had mess cups and were sipping from the contents as steam rose to wreath their faces, all, but Kirby. He lay curled on his side, head resting against Caje's leg, a blanket covering him. Caje was blowing on his cup and when he decided the contents were cool enough, he leaned down, helped Kirby raise his head and held the cup to the rifleman's lips.

Quietly, barely above a whisper, his eyes clouded in memory, Ironhorse came to a decision. "Saunders…we've got to get Saunders out of that cave."

The medic's attention was occupied by watching the squad, worrying about their welfare, but Doc heard and nodded. His own thoughts were never far from the man they'd been forced to leave behind. Saunders would be cold, the fire burned out by now, cold, in pain and lonely, lonely being the most frightening of the three in Doc's mind. He knew Saunders was still alive – could feel it.

An SS major, resplendent in black trimmed uniform and boots shiny enough to reflect the lieutenant colonel's wan face back at him from his prone position on the ground, issued a sharp order. There was a hasty reply and Ironhorse found himself lifted onto a field cot. He closed his eyes as the world around him tipped and swam and he fought to retain his very tenuous grip on consciousness. The temptation to give in, release himself to the beckoning darkness was very nearly overpowering, but he had to remain conscious, had to get his point across. He prayed this major spoke English. This prayer, the least among many, was answered.

"I have come to question you, Herr Colonel. I consider it an honor. I hope you will cooperate, although in my limited experience with American officers of high rank, I have found them to be most…stubborn, very nearly as stubborn as the enlisted men." The major sat in the camp chair provided by a subservient private, stripped off his fine leather gloves and used them to gesture toward the colonel's bedraggled squad.

The implication was not lost on Ironhorse. "You think by threatening my men you can force me to talk. Not very original, Major." And it's been tried before – in Vietnam – a long time ago, no, a long time in the future; a prisoner of war camp; a young captain and another exhausted, worn out squad. The VC tried it. It hadn't worked, but it had been unholy hell. It would be no better here, but Ironhorse did not want it to come to that.

"I have my own proposition, Major," Ironhorse countered. "I'll tell you everything I know," precious damn little – five days running around a French forest, chasing and being chased by opposing squads of the enemy – "in exchange for your cooperation in retrieving my wounded sergeant from a cave not far from here. Bring Sergeant Saunders back. Treat him and my other wounded and the information is yours."

"That's it, Colonel? That is all you want from me?" The German snapped his fingers and an orderly ran over and placed a crystal wine glass filled with a very decent Cognac, both doubtless looted from a French villa, into his hand.

"Another, Schmidt, for our honored guest."

The major reached across to hand Ironhorse the glass, but the colonel had lost consciousness. The major shrugged, downed his glass quickly, handed it to Schmidt, leaned back in his chair and casually sipped the second.

"Find out from that PFC over there," he indicated Caje, "where that sergeant is. Send two men back with the American medic. Give him whatever supplies he requires and send my surgeon here to me. We must not lose our colonel before he tells me what I need to know."

Schmidt nodded, snapped of a fine salute and scrambled to obey orders.

Of course the Germans made Doc carry the stretcher as well as his own bag and the extra supplies, but the young G.I. dismissed the cumbersome weight and the discomfort where the support poles bit into his shoulder and rubbed it raw. If the krauts were expecting him to lag behind because of the burdens they'd imposed, they were wrong. He outpaced them in his impatience to get to Saunders.

The temperature inside the cave was at least as cold as it was outside, but clammily dank and eerie to boot, the fire having burned totally out. The German private moved past doc and flipped on the switch to his flashlight.

"Over there, the far wall. Over there." Doc gestured, dropping the stretcher heavily to the rock floor, the sound shattering the almost absolute stillness of the cave. He followed tight at the kraut's back. The flashlight beam found the sergeant, played on his face and down his body. The medic pushed by, crouching at Saunders' side.

"Hold that light steady!" Doc probed the sergeant's throat for a pulse, his own fingers clumsy and numb from cold. He found it, barely, and was grateful to the point of smiling up at the second German when he, too, lit his flashlight.

That still didn't give the medic enough light to work by. With gestures and words he communicated the need to move the sergeant outside.

Saunders was deeply unconscious. Most of the hours since the colonel and his men had left he'd spent awake and completely aware of his predicament. And he'd regretted, painfully and recurrently, his decision to send the men away. The loneliness was unbearable. The weaker Saunders became, the less he thought it had been the only correct decision, morally, ethically. The weaker he got, the more selfish he became. He needed the comfort his men, his friends, would have provided – their warmth and support. He was selfish, you bet. He was also only human.

Sounds were the worst. In delirium he thought them the voices of people he knew – his mother's, sister's, brothers', his dad's – a father dead years ago, but the memory of the voice, rich and deep and clear remained vivid and real. But the sounds were only the wind whistling through the tunnels that led into the cave, narrow snaking tubes that grabbed hold of the wind at one end and delivered it in a series of whispers, moans, giggles and sighs to the desperately ill man at the other.

It was a blessed relief when the soldier lost conscious thought. He was beyond physical pain and his dreams were puffs of smoke and wisps of sheep's back clouds. It was an unshatterable peace.

Just under two hours passed by the time Doc, his patient and guards returned to the German encampment. A tent had been erected in the center of the small clearing and the colonel lay within the open-sided shelter. A doctor, white coat and all, fussed around him doing precious little for the American officer's severe head injury.

The major remained seated on his camp chair, smoking a cigarette, tapping one black-booted foot with more than a bit of impatience. You can't interrogate an unconscious man.

Kirby remained where he had been, on the ground among the other soldiers, Caje's hand resting lightly against the private's shoulder. Kirby was conscious and in obvious pain, his thin face pinched and colorless.

The kraut lieutenant motioned the litter over next to Kirby. Doc had no choice but to lay Saunders on the damp ground, the only thing between him and the cold bare earth a bit of canvas.

Doc's kraut escorts sat near the captive G.I.s and began to pull out the personal items the Americans had left in the cave for Saunders. Littlejohn was the first to notice and he howled in indignation as the pair lit up Caje's cigarettes using the PFC's own Zippo: split up the medic's pack of gum and Kirby's last two cans of rations. "Dirty kraut bastards! They stole the stuff we left for the Sarge!"

Caje and Billy joined in the verbal assault as Littlejohn jumped to his feet, menacing the Germans with bound hands, intimidating them with his size. Yet all the noise and posturing were no match for German Mausers and their own medic's voice of reason.

"Take it easy, Littlejohn, for God's sake! You'll only make things worse! Sit down, now. Just sit down."

While the big PFC continued to glare ominously at the Germans, he did as Doc asked.

Surprised at the venom of the Americans' words and understanding none of them with the exception of the derogatory "kraut," the Germans still got the message.

Sheepishly, as if to make amends, the second German, the younger of the pair and about the same age as Billy Nelson, reached inside his jacket and withdrew the metal box containing the morphine and syringe Doc had left in the cave. He got to his feet, walked over to where the medic knelt between Saunders and Kirby and held out the offering, indicating Doc should use it for the suffering soldiers. The medic smiled, for the second time trading the sincerity of an expression in return for a kindness. He accepted the box.

xxxx

It took only the briefest flash of consciousness, all he was allowed, for Ironhorse to realize he was no longer on a World War II battlefield, nor in a civilian hospital. The surgeon leaning over him, panning the annoying light into his eyes, gave Ironhorse a close-up view of the insignia on his collar – the gold leaf of a U.S. Army major.

As he careened again back into the painless dark void of lost sensation, the half-Cherokee colonel had one entirely lucid thought; he had no idea he'd voiced it aloud. "This shit's gotta stop!"

xxxx

This, what he felt now more than rivaled the worse hangover Paul Ironhorse had ever imagined, let alone experienced. Even in the relatively dim light of the German-provided tent, the brightness drilled into his half-opened eyes like shards of jagged glass. He groaned and raised one arm to block the glare.

A presence insinuated itself between him and the light and Ironhorse uncovered his eyes, blinking up into the familiar face of King Company's medic. "Doc," he acknowledged, his expression questioning even before he spoke the words. "Saunders…how's Saunders?"

The medic sighed once then bent into a crouch to speak in a confidential whisper to his commander. "Not good, Sir. He won't make the night." Doc's gaze met the colonel's. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.

"They can't help? Their surgeon can't do anything?" Ironhorse asked.

"No, Sir. The kraut surgeon could get the bullet out. I asked him, to, begged him," the young G.I. paused, embarrassed at the catch in his voice. It was an obvious struggle for him to continue, a struggle against his own anger and grief, "but the doctor, he said his superior wouldn't allow it. Guess an enlisted man's not worth the effort. Beggin' your pardon, Colonel. I didn't mean…." Doc stammered. "I meant no disrespect to you, Sir," he finished.

"None taken, Doc," the colonel replied.

"The surgeon gave me one bottle of plasma, all he could spare, and some bandages and even at that he acted like it was more than he should do. He was nervous about it, kept lookin' over his shoulder."

Doc sank back on his haunches, head bowed, hands clasped in front of him in a semblance of prayer, but Doc wasn't praying, not in the usual sense. Ironhorse could see past him to Saunders and beside him, Kirby and Caje.

"Has he been conscious at all?"

"No. I thought about giving him the morphine, the dose I'd left in the cave, but I gave it to Kirby instead. I don't think the Sarge can feel much of anything any more. At least I hope he can't. Didn't do him a bit of good bringin' him here. No good at all." Doc never raised his head. His words were directed at no one in particular.

"That's not true, Doc," Ironhorse said. "It's the best thing you could've done. Look…just look."

Slowly the medic brought his head up, turning slightly. He saw what Ironhorse had seen, Saunders being comforted, his hand held tightly in Kirby's; Caje bent low, speaking to him in his softly accented, familiar way.

Doc nodded. "Guess you're right, Colonel. Least he won't be alone. Nothing's worse than being alone…dying alone."

Neither man heard the approach of the German major until he cleared his throat at an attempt at a polite interruption. The politeness stopped there. "Back to your patients, Medic. Your colonel and I have things to discus."

Doc straightened, wearily, reluctantly, favored Ironhorse with a whispered, "sir," and made his way back to the squad.

The major settled onto the camp stool, lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke skyward. "I did as you requested, Colonel Ironhorse. Your sergeant is here. Now I will have your information." The major blew the next plume of smoke toward the American officer.

Ironhorse gritted his teeth at the intended insult, but otherwise gave no outward acknowledgment of his annoyance. "Agreed, Major."

The German looked incredibly pleased with himself and with a snap of well-manicured fingers brought over his adjutant, pen and notebook in hand.

Ironhorse began. "Five days ago I awoke from a head injury sustained from an enemy grenade. I remembered my name, rank and serial number – not the day, the date or the year. During those five days the squad, the men who found me, and I dodged your patrols, engaged the enemy and were ultimately caught in a battle against one of your machine gun emplacements. We took refuge in the cave where I ordered the sergeant left behind. This morning we were hit by your artillery barrage and captured. That, Major, is all I know…everything I remember."

There was a prolonged silence. Ironhorse watched the major's complexion change from a healthy ruddy pink to a dark mottled red. A vein pulsed and bulged at his right temple and the cigarette dropped from his fingers. "Liar! Liar!" he shrieked, drawing back a hand, palm open, and slapping the prone helpless Ironhorse hard across one cheek.

The colonel's head snapped to the side. His ears rang and the already agonizing pain became unbearable. He felt himself passing out, but fought it. Guttural orders were issued. Hands were on him, lifting him roughly, carrying him away from the semi-comfort of the cot and tent, laying him on the naked ground next to Sergeant Saunders.

Doc's hands were on him now, trying to help, for all the good it would do. The colonel heard the echo of the medic's earlier words, "He won't make the night," only this time Doc spoke not of Sergeant Saunders, but of Ironhorse himself. His only hope for survival, his and Saunders, lay in a hospital, the skill of the surgeons and science. He had gone back before, somehow, and somehow he knew he could go back again, not back, but forward where Harrison and probably by now the rest of the Blackwood Project members, Suzanne and Norton, waited. If he could find his way out of this place and out of this time then why couldn't he bring Saunders? And maybe this once he could control the travel.

Ironhorse suddenly lost control of his body. Limbs rigid, head thrown back, eyes open but unseeing, the colonel convulsed. Doc fell back, horrified by the suddenness, the violence of it all.

"Jesus!" Caje implored.

Littlejohn's words were shouted curses.

With a final effort, whether force of will or just plain luck, Ironhorse flung out a hand. It landed on Saunders' chest. The fingers curled into a fist around a handful of dirty khaki jacket. Ironhorse felt the beginnings of the now familiar spiral into darkness and welcomed it this once.

xxxx

In the small military hospital outside Paris, a silent earthquake rattled the brass pulls on dressers, sent unoccupied beds skittering into walls, cracked glass-doored cabinets and sent nurses, doctors and orderlies scurrying to check patients.

Outside, directly above the hospital, lightening ripped horizontally across a cloudless sky, unheralded by the crack or rumble of thunder. It was eerie and soundless and over as quickly as the quake.

Everything in the hospital was as it had been, everything in every room except that occupied by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Ironhorse. On a bed against the wall, a previously unoccupied bed, lay a solider. He was young, in his late 20s, blond and blue-eyed, nearly dead from a bullet wound to the chest. Dressed in khaki fatigues, World War II era, a set of dog tags identified him as Sergeant Carson C. Saunders, missing in action since November, 1944.

The young soldier, recovering from surgery, could not or would not offer any explanation as to how he came to be where he was. In fact, he offered very little in the way of information of any sort. He was quiet and withdrawn.

Colonel Ironhorse, recovering from his own surgery, was just as reticent. The only obvious fact being that the sergeant and the colonel were well-acquainted. There seemed to be a bond between them, the type forged by men who had shared the experiences, perhaps, of war.

When the colonel left the hospital in the company of his civilian family, Doctors Blackwood and McCullough and Norton Drake, Sergeant Saunders was warmly included. On his right wrist he wore a sterling I.D. bracelet, recently repaired and returned to him by Ironhorse.

Questions remained unanswered to the dissatisfaction of the local military authorities. After a phone call from General Henry J. Wilson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C., those questions were withdrawn. All information and records pertaining to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Ironhorse and Sergeant Carson Saunders were permanently sealed.

xxxx

A sudden ferocious storm drove a group of exhausted prisoners of war and their German guards to cover. Forced to leave their two most seriously wounded comrades behind, the G.I.s found the men gone when morning broke and they returned to the tiny clearing. No amount of pleading or angry shouts moved the Germans to tell the Americans the whereabouts of the lieutenant colonel and the sergeant. In fact, if the G.I.s hadn't known better, they would've sworn the Germans seemed as surprised as they when the officer and non-come came up missing, but the surprise was covered quickly and well, and the fate of the two American soldiers remained a mystery to the survivors of King Company, one they would discus and agonize over, for years to come.

xxxx

Six months after the end of the war, Sergeant Carson C. Saunders' family, his mother, sister and brothers, buried an empty coffin. The non-com's worst nightmare had come to pass.

END