I opened my eyes slowly, taking the day's first deep breath of the icy cold air. I looked up and saw the tiny bit of light peeking through the tarp that covered the top of my temporary home. I sighed deeply and buried my head into the shoulder of my warm foxhole buddy.
Choosing to bunk with Buck was the best idea I ever had. The bear of a man put out a lot of body heat and when cuddled up next to him I was finally able to stop the shivering that seemed to rack my body at every hour of the day.
"M-m-m-morning," Buck yawned. I groaned and buried my head deeper into his shoulder. Buck chuckled.
"C'mon, time to get up," he nudged me.
"No, too cold," a shiver struck my body as if to prove my point.
"Get up." Buck said, pushing me away from him. I growled and wrapped my arms around his torso, burying my head in his side and refusing to let go. Buck sighed deeply and tried to pry my clasped hands apart, but to no avail. "Benny," He said in exasperation. "C'mon," he nudged me again. I moaned in protest but let him go and sat up anyway.
As soon as I left the comfort of Buck's body heat I was hit with an onslaught of shivers so strong that my teeth rattled as they smacked together.
"Jesus, Benny." Buck rubbed my arm, trying to help me warm up.
"I t-t-told you I c-can't-t main-t-tain my bo-dy heat-t to save m-my li-fe." I chattered. Buck quickly wrapped our shared blanket around me and rubbed, trying to help me get my body temperature back up. I had always had a problem when it came to the cold. I was never able to keep my body temperature at a constant during the winters and was now in a constant battle with my own body as it refused to work properly. It took thirty minutes before I could adjust enough to the cold to be of any use.
"You okay now?" Buck asked. I nodded, the shivers only came every once in awhile and I was able to stand up and crawl out of the foxhole. The fog hung around like a thick blanket killing any hope that we had of not only a supply drop but also of any warmth the sun's bright rays may have been able to give us. I yawned deeply and slung my M1 Garand over my shoulder as Buck came to stand beside me. He nodded to me, rubbing his hands together and we set off to the chow line. The first thing I went for was the coffee. I held my tin cup in my ungloved hands, letting the hot liquid warm them and replace the blue tinted color of my nails with a more natural pink. I took a sip and felt the hot beverage scorched a line down my GI tract and helped to warm me from the inside. Once it was gone I filled my cup with whatever it was that Joe Dominguez had cooked and slowly picked at it, taking small bites and trying to make it last as long as possible.
After our pitiful breakfast was over Buck went off to Command and I took my turn at the O.P. with Shifty. He was a very soft spoken southern man and we quickly found ourselves falling into a comfortable silence. Neither one of us talked much unless we were around the people we were most comfortable with, but it was nice being able to sit in the silence and not feel like you have to try and strike up an awkward conversation.
We sat in that comfortable silence and watched the line, not that there was much to see, the fog obscured our line of sight and we were unable to more than six feet in front of us at a given time. We shared a canteen of cold coffee, keeping it pressed between our bodies to try and keep it from freezing in the winter air. Thirty minutes into our watch, the heavens opened up and a thick, wet snow started to fall from the gray sky. The branches that covered the O.P. did nothing to keep the frozen flakes from falling onto our clothes and melting from our body heat. By the time our watch was over and we were relieved, we were soaked and shivering like mad. We split up and I found my way over to Smokey's foxhole. I crawled in and was instantly warmed by the fire he was using to make coffee. I sighed and pulled my wet jacket off, laying it flat near the fire to dry. Smokey grinned at my chattering teeth and passed a dry, fire warmed blanket over to me which I gratefully wrapped around my cold form.
"You look like a drowned rat, Sarge." He handed me a cup of hot coffee and I took a large gulp, reveling in the burn it left as it traveled to my stomach.
"Eat me." I mumbled causing Smokey to laugh.
"I think I'll refrain, thanks." He grinned at took a swig of his own coffee. We sat around and talked until the coffee was gone. I ruefully unwrapped myself from the blanket and slipped on my now mostly dry jacket before grabbing my kit and slithering out of the semi-warm foxhole. I grumbled and cursed the snow as I did a quick patrol of the area, checking on the men and keeping an eye out for the lost Germans that kept wandering into our lines.
"Hey, hey Benny." Guarnere called out as I passed his foxhole. I stop and turned to the Philly man. "Hey, Ben, have you seen the Doc?" He asked me.
"Nope," I said as I stuck my hands in my armpits, trying to keep them warm. "Why?"
"Aw, shit." He grumbled. "I'm pissing glass, I swear to God." He looked around as if Roe would appear out of nowhere.
"You need to drink more water." I told him, knowing he would protest.
"Why the hell would I do that?" He asked an annoyance.
"The more water you drink the faster your body will clear out the infection." I informed him.
"Yeah, I'll do that." He scoffed and I rolled my eyes. "You see Doc, you send him my way." I waved him off as I continued my patrol.
"Sergeant." I rolled my eyes as Lt. Dike's voice hit my ears. I plastered a forced smile on my face and turned to the E Company leader.
"Sir." I greeted, giving him a brief nod.
"Sergeant, where are you going?" he asked in a stern voice. I resisted to the urge to till my eyes.
"I'm patrolling the lines, sir." As You should be doing. I added mentally. He looked at me momentarily and I could see the cogs in his head turning as he tried to find something inspiring to say to me. I raised my eyebrow at him expectantly.
"Right, carry on Sergeant." He turned to leave, but spun back around to look at me. "Oh, by the way, I'm going to be at the C.P." He told me. "I have a call to make." I smiled politely and nodded.
"Yes, sir." I glared at his retreating back and mentally flipped him off. Frustrated, I continued my patrol of the area, running into Lip who was doing the same thing as I was. We filled each other in on what we had found during our patrol and I relayed Dike's message. He rolled his sighed deeply in annoyance. We talked for a while more before we both went on our way.
It was around dark by the time I finished my second watch with Shifty and made my way back towards the foxholes.
"Hey, Jo." Roe called out as he jogged over to me. I stopped and turned to the medic, trying to warm my hands under my arms as I waited for him.
"Hey Roe." I greeted. "You need something?"
"Yeah, you still got your morphine?" He asked. I raised an eyebrow at him and forced down the grin that started to form on my face.
"You know, Roe. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem." He rolled his eyes and I grinned.
"I don't know what that means, but I'm fairly sure you're just being a wise-ass." He muttered. I laughed and pulled my quivering hands from inside my jacket sleeves. I opened my jacket slightly and dug around in my shirt pocket until I found the small rectangular box and handed it to Roe. He took it from my hand and placed it into his bag, smiling as he did so.
"You wanna know the second step?" I asked as I zipped my jacket up and pulled my hands back into my sleeves.
"No, I don't." He grumbled.
"Good, because I have absolutely no idea what it is." I laughed and he grinned at me. "By the way, have you seen Lt. Compton?" I asked.
"No, I haven't." He said. "I'll tell him you're looking for him if I see him though. "
"Thanks." I smiled.
"Oh." He stopped me before I could turn and leave. "You got any scissors?" I held back a laugh as his pronunciation of the word scissors came out sounding more like, 'sizzuhs.'
"No," I thought a moment, "but you might want to try Perconte. The boy has an entire drug store in his pack."
"That's what Gordon said." I shrugged. "Alright, thanks Jo." I nodded and watched him as he flitted from foxhole to foxhole looking for morphine. I shook my head in amusement and continued my search for the elusive Buck.
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About an hour later I grinned as I made my way across the snow towards the sound of off key singing, but stopped short as I heard a familiar voice.
"Shut it! Shut the hell up!" Buck shouted in a whisper as I watched him go running up to two figures. I creased my eyebrow in confusion and worry as I made my way over to Roe, Buck and Guarnere.
"Well, I'll find out, Lieutenant." I heard Guarnere says as I came up on the three. I shared a glance with Bill, both of us worried over the state of mind of our platoon leader. Buck was glancing off into the distance, his eyes wide and a look on his face that frightened me to think about.
"Find them. Stop them. Stop them." Buck ordered Bill.
"Hey, hey." I said as I placed my hand on Buck's shoulder. "It's alright, Bill will shut them up."
"Yeah, I'll find out." He assured Buck as he and I shared a look. "I'll shut them up."
"See, he's handling it, Buck." I eased him towards our foxhole. "Come on, let's get out of this cold." I started to gently push him along as his wide eyes searched the world around him. He acted as if the Germans were going to jump out from the trees at any moment and attack us. I finally got him to our foxhole where I pushed him in and covered it with the tarp. Being out of the snow-white world seemed to break him out of the trance he was in and he turned his eyes to me as I scooted up next to him and wrapped the blanket around our bodies.
"Everything's going to be alright." He said to me and I smiled at him.
"Right, Buck." I assured. "Everything is going to be alright."
I watched from an opening of the tarp as a bright yellow flare streaked itself across the sky, illuminating the world around it. The sound of enemy gunfire quickly followed and Buck and I jumped up and sprang into action. From the safety of the foxhole we shot blindly off into the horizon as the Germans did the same.
'Everything is going to be alright.' I thought to myself as the cry from a medic rang out through the sound of gunfire.
'Everything is going to be alright.'
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I had been a long day already. We were hit with another mortar attack, Sisk had been unlucky enough to get hit but, according to Roe, his wounds weren't bad. He was taken to the hospital in Bastogne and treated.
I was standing next to Sgt. Martin and Cpt. Nixon as we watched the rest of the men kneel in a prayer that was being lead by the company Chaplin. Battalion decided, in their infinite wisdom, that Easy needed to do a reconnaissance mission. Peacock ordered both Johnny and I to pick several E Company men to go on the mission. It was never easy, being put in the position of having to choose men to send out on a dangerous and potentially life threatening op. A jeep containing Roe pulled up just as the Chaplin finished blessing the men. Peacock informed Johnny and I that we were going to be walking until we made some kind of contact. Johnny and I exchanged quick looks of confusion before turning back to the Lieutenant.
"That's what's happening, that's the order." I rolled my eyes mentally and turned to watch as Julian approached us.
"Sarge." He called out, I motioned for Johnny to take the lead as I walked over to check up on Luz.
"So, Peacock, huh?" George asked and I gave into the urge to roll my eyes.
"Yeah," I replied. "It's times like these that I wished I was still an officer."
"Yeah, I wished you were too," George said as he finished hefting on his bulky radio.
"Alright, that's it!" Peacock called to us. "Let's move out!"
"Tactical columns, gentlemen!" Johnny called as we started to move out. We walked along in silence the only sound was the crunching of the fresh snow under our boots as the snow fell heavily all around us. It reminded me of the pillow fight that they had for Plebes at the Point. It was just one giant pillow fight that was only for the Plebes and it allowed us to cut loose and have some fun without having to worry about being yelled at by the upperclassmen, though they still tossed things at us from the windows. We spent a good hour or more beating the crap out of each other with pillows and by the time we were done, there were feathers and fuzz everywhere turning the courtyard white like winter had come early.
We spotted a wooden pile that marked the line for the Germans. Johnny took Julian with him to scout out the area. The sound of gunshots filled the air.
"Bull! Christenson! Benny! Up on line!" Johnny called out and we ordered the men forward towards the wood piles. I dropped down next to Luz who was on comms immediately after we caught sight of Julian laying on the ground, blood pouring from his neck.
"Covering fire!" Johnny yelled at us and we concentrated our fire on the area the Germans guns were firing from. I chanced a glance of to Julian and saw Babe try to make his way over to the kid, only to be shot at and forced back.
"Double your efforts!" I ordered to the men. "Concentrate on that nest!"
"Where the hell is Peacock!" George yelled at me over the sound of gunfire. I chanced a glance around the area, not seeing the Lieutenant anywhere.
"I don't know!" I yelled back.
"Shit." He returned to his radio, relaying the situation to the C.P. We continued firing, trying to open up enough of an opportunity to allow Babe to get to the fallen man. But it was to no avail.
"Pull back!" Muck yelled. "We gotta pull back!"
"Let's get the hell out of here!" Bull yelled. Peacock had left us to take care of ourselves as the men looked to us noncoms to get them out of there alive. I crawled over to Johnny and Bull, keeping my head down and out of the line of fire.
"We can't stay here, Johnny!" I yelled. "We're sitting ducks!" Johnny nodded at me.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" He called out
"Move!" Bull yelled.
"C'mon boys!" I yelled. "Pull back!" I grabbed George's shirt and pulled him up then pushed him into a run. Bull, Johnny and I stayed behind providing covering fire until we were sure everyone was on their way, then we made our own way back to our own line.
I was sick to my stomach by the time we made it back to our line. Everything in me screamed to go back and get Julian. All the training I had received yelled back at me, 'We don't ever leave a man behind!' But this wasn't the war I had grown up in. We were spread so thin that we couldn't risk the life another man in order to save one who wasn't going to live to see another day.
The Germans were following close behind us, shooting at our retreating form. They hit one of the men and I vaguely glanced over as Roe jumped to his side in an instant. I took cover behind a tree and covered Johnny who was bringing up the end. Nixon yelled at him, asking what was going on and he relayed the loss of Julian. Babe screamed out that we had to go back and that the kid was still alive, but there was nothing we could do.
"No!" Nixon ordered. "Fall back!"
"We lost Peacock." I said to Nixon.
"No, he's back at the C.P." I raised an eyebrow at Nixon and he just shrugged and rolled his eyes. The man had left us when he was supposed to be leading us. He had turned tail and ran back to safety, leaving us to fight. "C'mon Martin! Fall back! Get 'em outta here!" He ordered. I covered the men as Martin ordered us to fall back. Once he was even with me I jumped up and we retreated back to our line.
The mood was subdued as we sat around in a small circle. Joe Dominguez had coffee and food waiting for us, but it was pretty obvious that none of us felt like eating. I held my warm cup of coffee in my hands, staring off into space. I closed my eyes and sighed deeply.
I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy.
That was part of the Ranger creed had been drilled into me over and over again. I forced the bile down as I repeated it over and over in my head. The memory of Julian, bloody and reaching out for help, burned in my mind.
I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy.
I had failed. I had left Julian behind.
I felt unfit to call myself a Ranger.
I no longer knew who I was anymore. I no longer felt like a Ranger, I no longer felt like a doctor. I felt like I was wondering aimlessly through the world, trying to find my place in a time that I was never meant to be in. I had lost what it was that made me, me. I had no idea had to get it back.
"Hey people." Winters said as he sat down. "Let me sit in here with you guys." I looked up at the man. He said nothing to us, just sat with us, letting us know that even if he wasn't our C.O. anymore, he was still there for us no matter what.
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Buck had commanded me to follow him to Dog Company later that day, he needed to coordinate with their CO about something and Roe had decided to tag along with us to see if he could beg anymore supplies. Once we found the CO, I left Buck to speak with him while I followed Roe around, bartering everything we had for morphine and bandages. We didn't get too much but we did get some and he was thankful for that.
"Sergeant Benally." Roe and I stopped as Lt. Speirs came up from out of nowhere behind us.
"Sir." I nodded and smirked as Roe automatically froze. Speirs nodded in affirmation, ignoring the Cajun man completely.
"Sergeant Benally, what are you doing here?" He questioned in a flat tone.
"I came here with Lt. Compton. He needed to talk with your CO and when we found him I went off with Roe to try and find some supplies." I gestured to the Medic at my side who had been silent through the whole exchange. Speirs turned his piercing gaze to Roe and I saw the man flinch. I had the same reaction the first few times I had that gaze directed at me, but I found myself getting used to it. It was just something I thought of it as uniquely Speirs and I found myself ignoring the crawling up my spine feeling that his gaze brought. I watched in silent amusement as Speirs sized up the Medic and Roe tried to look at the Lieutenant without actually looking at him. After a few moments, Speirs gave him a curt nod and pulled out an unused bandage from his jacket and handed it to Roe, who took it with shaking hands. I wasn't sure if they were from the cold of the snow covered forest or from the cold of Speirs' calculating stare.
A loud BANG sounded through the air around us and brought an end to my amusement as we were sprayed with wood splinters. Speirs grabbed my shoulder and pushed me into the nearest foxhole, shoving Roe in beside me before dropping in himself. I threw one of my arms around the medic, covering him while the other came to my helmet, making sure it stayed in place as the shells started going off all around us. I felt a hard body press itself against mine, covering me from the blasts as they started to get closer and closer to our cover.
And just like that, it was over. The hard body of Speirs left mine, allowing me to jump up and out of the Foxhole. I grabbed Roe's hand and helped him out of the hole as well, taking in the world around us. What had once been tall beautiful trees lay scattered in splinters all around us, littering the clean white snow.
"MEDIC!" Someone yelled from our right. Gene was off like a shot, a blur in our vision as he ran off to the wounded man. Speirs followed after the medic without a second thought and I turned to look for Buck.
"Benny!" Buck cried out and I turned to see him jog up to me from out of the haze of smoke and snow. I sighed in relief at seeing him there and unharmed. He grabbed my shoulders and held me still as he looked me over for any injuries. His wide blue eyes held a wildness in them, a crazed look of a haunted past and I wanted nothing more than to give him a hug and let him know it would be okay… but there was a time and place for that. He sighed deeply in relief as he shut his eyes. When he opened them back up they were their normal smiling blue, but the look still haunted me. "Where's Roe?" He asked, looking around for the medic.
"He ran off," I started in the direction Roe and Speirs had run to. "This way." I called after Buck.
We arrived on the scene to see Roe and Speirs bent over a young private who was bleeding profusely from his right arm. Roe had put a tourniquet on his arm but it wasn't helping much through the Private's coat. I bit my lip and looked up at Buck. He must have seen the mental battle I was having with myself. Do I stand by and let him die or do I help him and risk exposing my true self to the world? He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and nodded softly to me. That was all it took for me to spring into action.
I dropped to my knees beside Roe and tossed my helmet off so it wouldn't get into my way. I whipped out my knife and cut the boy's jacket sleeve open up to the neck, exposing the wound to the cold air of the Ardennes forest. I pushed a stunned Roe aside as I rolled up my sleeves and shoved my small fingers into the hole in the boy's arm. He screamed in pain as I dug around, using my knife to open the hole up more. I grabbed at everything I could, pinching it, trying to find the small artery that was pumping the Private's blood from his body.
"Sergeant, what are you doing?" Speirs asked from beside me as he tried to comfort the screaming Private.
"Arteries are like rubber bands, when they're severed, they move up back into the body." I mumbled as I dug around. A few more men came over and immediately covered the boy with blankets.
"No," I yelled at them. "Take them off."
"He's going into shock," Speirs growled.
"I know, but the warmer he is the, scheisse, the faster his blood is going to pump. If he stays cold his blood, Hurensohn, will become more viscous. Joder!" I kept pinching and digging, cursing in any language I could remember. "The more viscous it is, fuck, the slower it will flow."
I felt the rush of warm liquid on my finger tip and I knew I had found what I was looking for. I pinched the end of the artery and very gently pulled it out so that I could see it.
"Roe, I need you to gently pinch the artery." I said. He nodded to me and used his thumb and forefinger to pinch the artery just above my fingers. "You got it?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it." He said. I let go and reached into my pocket, pulling out my sewing kit. I wished desperately for a clean operating room and real tools so I could stitch the boy up properly, but this was all I had. I found the smallest needle I could and threaded it. I scooted up as close as I could to the boy's arm.
"Keep the artery still." I said, looking Roe directly in the eyes. He nodded and sat so his knee was resting under his elbow, steadying his hand. I breathed deep and started the delicate procedure of sewing up the tiny and very delicate artery. I had to be careful to make tiny sutures and to pull them tight enough so that they would seal off the wound, but not tight enough to rip the artery open. I wasn't sure how long it took, but I was finally able to place the last stitch and tie off the end.
"Alright, keep a grip on the artery, but let the blood flow into it." I said to Roe. I watched closely as he very slowly opened his fingers. "Stop!" I saw blood start to leak from the stitches. "Pinch it again." He did so and I proceeded to tie the small hole I had missed. I had Roe repeat the process and heaved a sigh of relief as the stitches held.
"You can warm him up now." I said and the boy was immediately covered in blankets. I watched him as he started to shiver with the rise in body temperature. I anxiously waited, but the stitches held and I told Roe he could let go of the artery. The jeep had arrived sometime during my attempts at saving the boy and I nodded at the men gathered around, letting them know they could take him to Bastogne where they were evacuating the worst of the wounded.
"He'll lose the arm, but hopefully what I did was enough to save his life." I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, as the boy was carried to the jeep. Roe stole a glance at me as he jumped into the jeep before it pulled away. I looked down at my hands and rubbed them together, watching as the blood flaked off and fell to the ground like red snow. I kept rubbing, trying to get the young Private's blood off of my hands
"Come on, kid." I looked up as Buck grabbed my hands, stopping my attempts at flaking the blood off. It wasn't until he touched them that I realized that I had been standing there rubbing them so hard that they had become raw. I swallowed hard and looked up to find Buck and Speirs staring at me along with the rest of the men who had come to help. Speirs was the first one to move, grabbing a cigarette from his pack and lighting it before giving it to me. I took it with shaky hands and drew deep from the stick of nicotine. Speirs ordered the men back to their posts and Buck grabbed my shoulders, gently nudging me along back to E Company.
"Jesus, Jo! Are you alright?" George exclaimed as he came rushing over to me as soon as we made it back to camp. I nodded and took another puff of my cigarette.
"Yeah." He grabbed my hands as he noticed the blood that covered them. "It's not mine." I rasped out and sat on the edge of his foxhole. I sat there in silence and picked off the flecks of blood from my hands while Buck told him what had happened. When I looked back up I noticed we had gathered a crowd. I began to squirm under the stares of the men until Buck helped me up and dragged me to our foxhole. He pushed my into it before jumping in himself, quickly followed by George.
"You okay, JoJo?" George asked me. I knitted my eyebrows together.
"Yeah." I said. "Yeah, I am." A small smile began to form on my lips. "I'm great, in fact." George and Buck looked at me, their eyes questioning my sanity. "This, this was what I was meant to do. This is who I am. I was trained to heal and helping that kid, saving his life reminded me of that." I grinned. "I helped him. I helped him." I was nearly giddy with excitement at finally being able to preserve life instead of taking it. "It felt amazing!"
"You're a strange kid." Buck laughed. "But I love ya' anyway." He grabbed me into a one armed hug and George did the same. I had somehow managed to find my own little happiness in that frozen hell and it was right there, smashed between my two best friends.
But happiness like that was never meant to last.
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Thank you to everyone who reads this story and to everyone who has added it to their favorites and alerts list.
I want to send a very special thanks to all my lovely reviewers! cHoCoLaTe-RuM, Azrael's Darkest Secrets, Screwby, and britt. Thank you all so very much! Your reviews mean the world to me!
To all my lovely readers, let me know what you think of this chapter by clicking that little and leaving me a review!
Thanks again!
Amanda
Translations:
Scheisse: German for 'Shit'
Hurensohn: German for 'Son of a Bitch'
Joder: Spanish slang word for 'Fuck'
Revised 7/10/17