This place destroys innocence in so many ways. Crumbles it up. Not just the soldiers, not just the wounded, not just the poor girls at Rosie's, it happen to all of us. To the most innocent of us.
Our company clerk is still a teenager, but his eyes are not young anymore.
And the camp priest, such a pure, gentle soul, out to do nothing but help and comfort. His eyes, Helen. His eyes are ancient.
The peas were gray. Big and swollen.
In the 30 seconds since it had been poured onto her tray, the gravy had started to congeal. How was that even possible?
The piece of pork looked like it had been left out in the sun for a good couple of days, like something was living inside of it.
Why had she even come here, why even bother trying to eat? Why not just go to bed, let her hand run over her ribs, and tap a little melody? Just accept that this place ate away at everyone, and that resistance was futile.
Why did they even serve meat, it seemed like such an insult. They spend their days trying to mend, sew back together. All the flesh on the operating tables, the never-ending supply of it.
'War is inevitable' Margaret had heard her father say since she was a little girl. A little girl with her father's old field manual her most treasured possession, along with her pink sandals that glittered in the sunlight and Flopsy the Bunny.
The field manual didn't speak about the people, though. Neither did the books from nursing school. They spoke of bones, tissue, and stitches, but failed to mention how seeing all those bones and tissue torn apart changed you. That even the most perfect of stitches were never enough. When you stared down at the bloody mess of what was just recently a whole person with a will, hopes, and dreams, it didn't help one bit to know the names of the bones torn apart. All it did was eat away at you, eat the meat away from your own bones, suck the hope from your soul.
Even Pierce had gone quiet earlier when Private Summers was driven into camp. The driver pale, 'Summers' been hurt' were his only words. Hurt. Yes, hurt. Beyond belief, beyond sense. The movement, the breathing despite everything. And yet, the stillness had been almost shocking, when the impossible movement stopped just minutes later, and the small group of them stood frozen in place, watching the impossible in absolute silence. The last rites eventually cited with a trembling voice, everyone's motions slow and careful as they started to move again, fall back into their routines.
Why had she even come here? Margaret stared at the peas on her tray. Routines. Eating was a routine, and routines were good. Safe.
She picked her fork up, maybe inside those gray, swollen things some nutrition was hiding. She could try one. She looked at her hand, holding the fork. Her nails were long. Sharp. Way too long and sharp, according to regulations, but she liked them that way. Liked how they made her feel. So many things had gone soft. Her heart. The ice she had once been covered in. Her believes. But not her nails, they could still cut.
When she tried to impale a pea with the prong of her fork, it bounced away. Of course it did. She picked another one up with her fingers and flicked it against the table with a quick movement of her wrist. It bounced, made a rather impressive little arch in the air, and disappeared over the edge of the table.
She put her coffee mug down in front of her and grabbed another pea, threw it against the table. It bounced on the surface and into her mug. Well, look at that.
The next one bounced away.
So did the next one.
The next one made a perfect little splash in her coffee.
"May I sit?"
Margaret looked up. Father Mulcahy stood beside the table holding his tray.
"Of course." She gestured at all the empty seats.
He sat down, stared at his tray without touching his food.
"Well," he said, still looking down, "This is… something. I don't… I don't know…" His voice trailed off.
Margaret looked at him more closely. He looked a little pale.
"Father, are you okay?"
"I… It's… The young man before…"
He looked up at her, brows frowning, his glasses low on his nose.
"How can such a thing be? How… He was still breathing, but… The way he… The way everything…"
His eyes dug into hers as if looking for an answer. Margaret wished she had one, an explanation that would make things better, make sense of things, but there was nothing. She had the exact same questions.
"Blood eagle," he said, and frowned again.
"What?"
"Blood eagle. It was this method the Vikings used for torture. I read about it somewhere, I don't know where. Maybe when I was young, my friend Gavin had a book…"
His voice trailed off and he stared into space. Then he shook his head and adjusted his glasses.
"They would spread the ribcage and pull out the lungs. While the victim was still alive. It was horrible… I... I don't… I don't know why Gavin would have that book. Maybe he borrowed it from his brother. It was his older brother, he had a room up in the attic, but we were never allowed up there…"
His voice trailed off again.
"Father, are you alright?"
Margaret reached over and laid her hand over his. His skin felt cold. Was something seriously wrong? He shouldn't have seen that, shouldn't have been exposed. Those images lived inside him now, and they would never go away.
"Father?"
He took a deep breath and shook his head again. Looked at her, and for a second he seemed surprised to see her.
"Major?"
"Father, are you alright?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm sorry." He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, I just haven't seen anything like that before."
"Me neither," Margaret said and gave his hand a quick squeeze before she leaned back. "It shouldn't be possible."
"His lungs were still moving in all that... And then they stopped."
He took a deep breath and put his glasses back on.
"The way the human body clings to life is truly astonishing, isn't it?"
Margaret nodded.
"That's a beautiful thing, isn't it?"
Margaret nodded again. She wasn't sure it was entirely true, if beautiful was the right word, but that was not what he needed to hear.
"It's why we're here, isn't it? That's why you nurses and doctors are here, and I…"
His eyes were big and searching still, and it made Margaret want to cry. She longed for whimsical Father Mulcahy, the one sitting at the piano in the O-Club, doing a bad rendition of 'Pennsylvania 65000'. Not this. It wasn't fair.
"You gave him a beautiful send-off," she said. It was the best she could do. There was no explanation, no reason, just another example of what a human body should not have to endure.
He nodded. She nodded. They sat in silence.
She grabbed a pea from her tray, threw it against the table, and watched it bounce over the edge.
"Look at that," he said. "Bouncy peas for dinner."
"Yeah. You get one point if you can get them to bounce into this." She pushed her mug closer to him, so it stood between them.
"Oh."
He picked up a pea, threw it against the table, and they both watched the rings it made in the coffee.
"You're a natural. First to ten?"
They played in silence. First to ten. Then 20. Then 30, and by then, the peas/coffee ratio had become problematic a long time ago. They were both very good.
There were no words, nothing would make either of them forget, nothing would erase what was a part of them both now. Nothing to be done, except watch gray peas disappear into a mug of coffee that grew cold a long, long time ago. To avoid the thoughts, to keep your brain from seeing pages of a book played out in real life.
A grim story that should have stayed between the covers of Gavin's brother's book up in the attic room, back in another world.