Author's Note: Those who have read my previous story, 'Running To You,' may find this chapter very familiar; most of what's here has been covered in the form of Bucky's flashbacks. Here, I've tried to tweak the action and dialogue to bring it into the present, rather than looking back from the future (also retconned one or two minor details. Nothing important). In my last fic, this would have been the introduction of Wells, and the second chapter featuring Carrot. I didn't want to change it too much, so I hope the narrative isn't too jarring. Thanks to everyone for your feedback so far, it's great to hear your thoughts/impressions of the story! :-)

We Were Soldiers

9. Tales from the Tween

The air was filled with rumbling snores, some of them so loud that they almost drowned out the creaking, groaning complaints of the USS Monticello's hull as the Atlantic Ocean tried to crush it inward. Bucky lay awake in his hammock, trying not to think of how much bigger than everything else the ocean was. How much colder, how much darker.

There was a quiet squeal of fabric and metal, and a head appeared hanging upside down from the hammock above, a pair of bright blue eyes watching him from above a thick shock of jet-black hair.

"Morning, Barnes."

"Morning, Wells."

"I ever tell you what happened to the USS San Fran?"

"Only every single day since we weighed anchor in New York." Wells' favourite way of greeting his comrades each morning was to recount the stories of every U.S. ship sunk in the Atlantic crossing. He was crazy.

"U-boat, less than a day out from the Med. Nothing its escort, the Lansdale, could do except watch the ship go down. Know how many troops were aboard the San Fran?"

"Over six-thousand," Bucky sighed by rote.

"Yeah. And you know how much space was available on the Landsale?"

"Not enough."

"Exactly." Wells swung down from his hammock and took a seat on somebody's over-packed duffel bag. "Imagine that. Having to watch all those men abandon their sinking transport, watch them swim to your ship, knowing you can't possibly take them all aboard without sinking your own vessel too. Knowing that there's still a U-boat down there, setting its sights on you, ready to open fire, knowing your warship is fast enough to outrun it, but not if you hang around to pluck those men out the ocean. Pretty messed up, huh? Coincidentally, do you know how many troops are aboard our fair tub?"

Bucky shrugged. In the fourteen days they'd been aboard the Monticello, he'd come to love Wells like a brother. And also hate him, like a brother. "Couple of thousand?"

"Yeah, a couple of thousand. Plus the crew." Wells gave him a cheery grin. "Got a look at our escort ship while stretching my legs on deck last night. It's the Lansdale."

"For Godssake, Wells, stick a cork in it," someone from the 107th grumbled from further down the row of hammocks.

"How many additional crew can the Lansdale take?" asked Carrot, three hammocks away. Bucky could hear the worried tinge in the young man's voice over the creaking of the hull.

"Three hundred, maybe four at a push?" Wells gave Carrot another cheerful grin. "Don't worry, Carrot. We're well below the waterline down here. In the event of U-boat attack, you'll likely be dead long before you have to worry about the Lansdale sailing off and leaving you behind."

"Don't be an ass," Bucky told him.

"I can't help it. I come from a long line of asses. I have a legacy to uphold." Wells looked around the cramped tweendeck as more of their fellow soldiers began to wake. "Must be nearly 5am now." He straightened up where he sat, as if preparing for inspection. Of course, if there really was an inspection, he wouldn't be lounging at his ease in his underclothes. "Sergeant Barnes, would you care to join me for a short repast of slop in the galley of this most venerable vessel?"

"Certainly, Sergeant Wells, it would be my pleasure." Bucky slid out of his hammock and grabbed his pants and a shirt.

"Et tu, Corporal Robbins?"

"I have no idea what you even said."

"He wants to know if you'll join us for breakfast," Bucky explained. He tugged on his boots and waited for Wells to get up off the ass he liked to talk out of so much.

The three men left the tweendeck while the majority of the company were still stirring from sleep. The word 'cramped' did not adequately describe their living quarters. Five regiments' worth of duffel bags, helmets, gas masks, backpacks, sleeping rolls, field kits and rifles were stashed anywhere an open space allowed. A guy couldn't go ten paces without having to scramble over someone else's equipment. It was like the assault course at Camp McCoy all over again, only more precarious, because at least you were expecting an obstacle course back at camp. Half a dozen soldiers had already tripped over equipment and hurt themselves bad enough to end up in the ship's infirmary.

Or, Bucky thought, as he offered an apology when he banged his shoulder against someone's hammock and almost toppled the guy out, the soldiers who'd tripped had then faked it enough to end up in the infirmary. Pretty spacious, that infirmary. And it had real beds, too. Real beds that didn't swing with the rolling and heaving of the ship dancing atop the ocean.

Bucky led the way through the bowels of the ship, followed by Wells and then Carrot, the latter offering some quiet chatter about a dream he'd had last night; a dream of reaching England, only to be told that the war was over and the Allies had won. A dream of the ship turning around before docking at port, taking Carrot back to his beloved Samantha. Bucky said nothing. He had no right to burst another guy's bubble. Besides, it was nice to dream sometimes.

When they reached the galley they joined the back of a long line of men waiting to be served their first of two meals of the day. After fourteen days aboard, Bucky still had no idea how many regiments were represented aboard the Monticello. It was hard enough trying to keep track of the five regiments sequestered in the tween. Sometimes, it was like sharing a room with five hundred three-year-old Charlies.

"You know much about the slave trade, Corporal?" Wells asked, leaning against one of the metal bulkheads of the ship. Bucky fought back a grin, and a few of the nearby soldiers from other regiments drifted closer to the trio. Hearing Wells go off on one of his tangents was usually amusing. Often uncomfortable, but amusing nonetheless.

"What? Me? Err, no. Why?" Poor Carrot. He was a nice guy, but he wasn't the smartest fish in the bowl. Wells was too damn smart for his own good. Bucky knew it. Carrot knew it. Wells certainly knew it.

"Those slave ships weren't like this fine tub of steel we get to be ferried around in. Big galleys made of wood, no way to pass the time 'cept by tossing knucklebones of deceased crewmen—" Carrot paled "—and singing songs about some big girl named Bertha. Took 'em weeks to cross the Atlantic, back in the old days, even with fair wind in the sails. Know what the biggest danger was?"

"If you say U-boats, I'll know you're bullshitting and I won't listen to another word you say," Carrot scowled. "Err, sir."

Wells shook his head. "Not U-boats. Not sharks. Not storms. Not even the giant kraken monsters which lurk in the deepest depths of the ocean. No, the biggest danger was scurvy, and rickets, and tooth decay. Imagine it: weeks spent in a floating tub, and nothing to eat except fish caught in the nets. All that salt making you thirsty, no fresh water except the swill you brought with you. No fresh fruit, no milk… you're basically just drying up from the inside. Then your teeth start to fall out."

"Shut up."

"Of course, the slaves had it worst. Weeks below deck, no moving around, no sunshine. Just long, hellish days below the waterline, withering away in the dark, cramped together, chained to the guy next to you, and to the hull of the tub. And if a slave died, it might be days before the crew took him away and tossed him over the side." The line shuffled forward, and Wells continued gleefully. "The worst journeys were the ones right at the end. See, the world was starting to say, 'Hey, this slavery bullshit, it's not right.' So everyone still trading in slaves knew their time was numbered, and had to make the quickest buck. Used to be they'd take fifty or sixty at a time. Slaves got to move around on deck a bit, get some exercise, because what the hell, right? You've got all the time in the world, and a whole continent of black people to exploit. Might as well make sure your slaves get to the New World fit and ready to work.

"But at the end, they couldn't afford to do fifty or sixty at a time. So they packed 'em in there, four, five hundred in a single hold, all chained up in the dark, no fresh water, no fresh food. You take fifty or sixty and afford them a bit of attention and exercise, and most of them might make the journey. But four hundred? You can't let that many slaves out, they might start something. So they just put 'em down there and every couple of days they threw a load of saltwater down, and at the end of the journey—keep in mind, this took weeks—they'd open up the hold and see how many were left, and they'd be lucky to get half of them out alive, all wilted and emaciated 'cos they'd been in the dark and fed nothing fresh for weeks."

Bucky felt his insides squirm throughout Wells' monologue. He knew the guy was mostly bullshitting, but that didn't make the bullshit any easier to imagine. And Carrot seemed to be swallowing it pretty hard. Carrot swallowed everything hard. If you told him the sky was pink, he'd believe it until he saw for himself that it wasn't.

"Is there a reason you're telling me this, Sarge?" asked Carrot, as the line moved again and Bucky and his friends neared the front of the queue.

"Just educating you on the fine, upstanding naval traditions of our fair country, Carrot," Wells grinned.

They reached the front of the line, picked up a tray each, and had something lumpy and yellowish-beige slopped onto it. Three dented spoons followed.

"Ahh, grits," Wells sighed melodramatically. "All praise President Roosevelt; no expense spared." He lifted his blue eyes to the galley cook who'd served him. "I hear the Lansdale crew get a proper fry-up every morning. Can you confirm?" The cook responded with steely silence. Judging by the grip on his ladle, Bucky suspected the guy was a hair away from beating Wells to death with it. Fourteen days straight of grits for breakfast had eroded his friend's ability to hold back the full extent of his sarcasm.

"C'mon," Bucky said, nudging Wells away from the serving area. "You can be an ass with us because we're your friends, but don't be an ass to the crew 'cos you know they'll take it out on all of us at dinner time."

"You're asking me to discriminate," Wells replied. "I gotta share the love. I can't let you guys get it all."

But Wells let himself be directed away, to one of the standing shelf-like tables in the mess. It wasn't the most comfortable way of eating, but the long tables running the length of the mess were the only way an entire complement of soldiers being taken to the front lines could be served twice a day. The Monticello wasn't too bad, because it could only carry a couple of thousand men, but some of the larger transports must've been hell to live in. Six or seven thousand soldiers at a time, all trying to eat, and drink, and sleep, and get exercise up on deck… made a guy appreciate the Monty and its grits.

At the end of the table, they rinsed and dumped their trays into a rapidly growing pile, and left the noise of the mess behind.

"Don't know why they don't just feed us out of a trough," Wells sighed. "Trust me, boys, they'll have troughs installed before the end of this campaign." He rubbed his hands together. "So. I need to get some slightly less stale air. Stretch my legs. Who's with me?"

"I'm gonna go back to the tween, write my girl a letter," said Carrot. He'd already written four letters to Samantha, on the two-week voyage, which had been dutifully squirrelled away in his duffel, ready for posting when they reached port. Bucky hoped she liked reading the same thing over and over again; it wasn't as if anything worth writing about had actually happened. The first day aboard had been a novelty, but that novelty soon wore thin.

Bucky let Wells lead the way to the upper deck, where they were met by one of the ship's crew who forced life jackets onto them. Not for the first time, Bucky wondered how many clumsy soldiers had actually slipped and fallen overboard. He posed the question to Wells as they dodged the mass of soldiers taking advantage of one of the rare non-rainy days to get some fresh air and sun.

"I don't think it's in case you fall," said Wells. "I think it's so that if you're up on deck when the U-boat attacks, you stand a chance of floating until you can be rescued."

"Then why don't they make the sailors wear them, too?"

"Well, because they're sailors. They're supposed to go down with their ship, aren't they?" Wells grinned. "We don't get to go down until we reach the front lines."

"Wonder where we'll be posted," Bucky mused. France, Greece, Italy, Africa… once, they'd been nothing more than names on a map, places mentioned in school, foreign countries full of exotic words and even more exotic people. Now, those distant lands had gotten a hell of a lot closer.

"I don't care where we end up. Fighting's fighting, it doesn't really matter where you do it." Another of Wells' trademark grins danced across his face, filling his blue eyes with excitement. "I'm more interested in getting to London."

"Why?"

"English dames, pal. Something about their accents sends chills up my spine. And down it, too." Wells threw an arm around Bucky's shoulders, gesturing expansively with his free hand as he lay out a scene. "Picture it. The women of London, missing their dads and their brothers and whatnot… all depressed because they only just got outta one big war which deprived them of a large number of their men-folk… we're already practically heroes just for signing up to come over here. We'll sweep into London with our roguish good looks and wild frontier charm, go dancing every night before we're posted—"

"You have seen Corporal Robbins, right?"

Wells gave a dismissive wave. "Forget him. We're leaving him behind. He has darling Samantha, anyway. He wouldn't dare step out, he's not an idiot. It's you and me. So anyway, beautiful English dames, surrounded by all that culture, and—"

"And didn't London just get the hell blitzed out of it?" Bucky interrupted again. "Surrounded by all that rubble, more like."

"C'mon pal, this is my parade, and I didn't bring an umbrella. Work with me here. London's rebuilt. Trust me, it's there, it's not going anywhere. If a plague and a Great Fire and some guy with a load of gunpowder couldn't get rid of it, a few German bombs don't stand a chance. So, first opportunity we get, we need to—"

A sudden and loud cry from one of the ship's crew cut off Wells' plans of seducing England's entire population of eligible dames. "LAND!"

When he saw the grin on his friend's face, Bucky knew it mirrored his own. Together they joined the flood of soldiers racing to the port—or was it starboard? Ah, who cared!—side of the ship for their first sight of land in two weeks. Bucky felt like a kid getting ready for his first day of school. No… like a man getting ready for his first date. This was it. This was the real start of the war.

"White cliffs," said Wells, squinting at the tiny sliver of land on the horizon. "Give it an hour, and we'll be seeing white cliffs. From there, it's just a short march to London. We'll be sipping beer and wooing dames by this time tomorrow. Mark my words, Barnes. Mark them."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

The air was charged with nervous excitement. It hadn't taken long for word of land to spread, and before midday every single soldier had been up onto the deck to feast his eyes on the sight of England. Carrot had returned to the tween deck almost immediately, to add to his letter a vivid description of how green and beautiful England looked after two weeks at sea, even though he'd only got a short glimpse of a greyish-brown coastline. The guy had one heck of an imagination.

That had been twelve hours ago. England had grown steadily larger—and greener, Bucky was pleased to note—and at long last the ship had come into the harbour… and waited. They had waited and waited. After midday, the soldiers had been ordered below deck, instructed to pack up and remain in their quarters until called for debarkation.

"What's taking so long?" Carrot grumbled. He was sitting atop his duffel, like half of the soldiers were, his photo of Samantha in his hands. "We're here, why won't they let us get off this death trap?"

"For reasons of common sense which have no doubt gone over your head, Corporal," said Wells.

"Enlighten us lowly grunts, Sarge." A few other servicemen were clustered around Bucky's hammock, most of them looking less twitchy than Carrot. Bucky supposed that was what you did, when you weren't certain about something. You stuck close to the guy with the highest rank. Followed his lead. Too bad there were no officers for Bucky to stick close to. All the officers were already in England, already on the front lines.

"Y'wanna help me enlighten the men, Sergeant Barnes?"

Bucky gave a dismissive wave. Heckling the lower enlisted ranks was one of Wells' favourite pastimes, and it was mostly harmless banter. This would probably be the last chance his friend got to do it.

"Alrighty. First of all, how are you gonna get to shore, Carrot? Your gear weighs over a hundred pounds, your helmet is a commode of solid steel, and your rifle won't be worth shit after you've taken it for a moonlit swim in the harbour."

"Well," Carrot sulked, "I expect there'll be boats."

"Yeah, but the boats aren't here on the Monty, are they? Unnecessary weight. So, the boats come from port. What do you think, the English just leave their flotilla in the middle of the harbour, prime target for Kraut planes and U-boats? No, they gotta assemble the fishing fleet to bring us to shore, right? And since it's too dangerous to tell a port exactly when a shipload of brave American soldiers is expected, lest we draw the ire of our fiendish foes, they weren't expecting us right now, so it'll take 'em some time to get those boats out here."

"Wait a minute," Bucky interrupted, pretending to hunt around his belongings. "I think I got your soapbox around here somewhere."

"Hardy-har, Barnes. Anyway, as I was saying… we need small craft to get us to shore. Only an idiot would do that in broad daylight. What if there's a U-boat down there waiting to take a pop? What if an enemy plane flies overhead and sees us debarking? Who knows how many German spies are in that port, counting us like sheep, ready to report back troop movements to their damn Führer? Why do you think we embarked in New York in the pitch black of night in the first place? That, Corporal Robbins, is why we're sittin' here in this death trap. Any other questions?"

"I got one," Bucky grinned. Wells could be a little harsh sometimes, and the 107th were tense enough already. "Do you have to go sideways through doors, to get your big head through them?"

A few of the soldiers laughed, and Wells gave him a punch on the arm. "I actually have my arrival announced by a troupe of dancing children. They enlarge the doors for me in advance. But thanks for your concern, Sergeant Barnes, it is duly noted."

"Hey Sarge," said Franklin, pulling Wells' attention away from Carrot. "You wrote any letters home yet?"

"Naw. Who'm I gonna write to? My folks got four sons in the forces now, so I didn't get a tearful farewell, just a 'Don't go leaving a bunch of bastards in every port' as I went out the front door. Come to think of it, I might've told my dad I was joining the navy, like my oldest brother, Tim. Guess that explains the warning. Tim's got two bastards at least, and I think one of 'em's in the Phillies."

"Don't you have a girl waiting for you?"

"Sure. One in every port. Two, in some." Wells grinned. "I'm not the one-rider type, Franklin. You settle for one girl, and soon enough you've got a house and a mortgage and a bunch of kids runnin' around driving you crazy. I really do admire guys like Carrot here, who can be happy with one girl for the rest of their lives." He clapped a hand atop Carrot's knee, making the young corporal jump.

"Really, Sarge?" Carrot sounded shocked by Wells' admission of admiration.

"Yeah, of course," Wells smiled. But there was a wicked gleam in eyes that made Bucky sit up a little straighter. Whatever his friend was up to, it couldn't be good. "I mean, I really do admire your dedication, and your love, and especially your self-control."

"Err, self-control, Sarge?"

Wells gestured at the picture in Carrot's hands. "Sure. You bring her out every night and just look at her. If it were me, I'd be doing more than looking. I'd be asking the rest of you to get the hell out of the tween for twenty minutes, maybe thirty if it had been a few days. Whaddya say, Corporal? Last night on the Monty. Y'want us to give you and your girl a little alone time?"

"I should have known you weren't being serious, Sarge," Carrot scowled.

Bucky sent a mental plea for Wells to leave it there. Of course, Wells was an ass, so he didn't.

"I'm being deadly serious, Corporal. Tell you what then, since you're not making the most of your pretty girl, what about sharing a little love with the rest of us? I know I wouldn't mind ten minutes alone with Samantha, and Franklin's got nobody wai—"

Bucky had watched as Carrot's face turned an angry shade of red from his neck up to his hairline, so he was ready to move as soon as the Corporal lunged at Wells; he managed to catch the younger man in a tackle, wrestling Carrot to the ground as he flailed and shrieked curses at Wells. There was no chance of Carrot seriously hurting Wells—the guy was almost as good at boxing as Bucky—but the last thing he wanted was for Carrot to get the rap for assaulting a fellow soldier before he'd even reported for duty.

"Hey fellas, why don't you take Wells for a walk up the tween deck… let him loose on the 101st, and mind his head in those narrow gaps," Bucky instructed the others present, as he held Carrot pinned to the floor in an arm lock.

Carrot continued to flail ineffectively as the rest of the group shepherded Wells up the deck, to where the 101st were holed up. Only when his friend was out of sight did Bucky release the struggling young man.

"You shouldn't've stopped me, Sarge," Carrot scowled, straightening his shirt. "Wells had it coming."

"Maybe. But you know what Wells is like. He didn't mean anything by it."

"He did, Sarge. I could tell."

Bucky plucked the picture of Samantha, dropped in the scuffle, up from the floor and handed it back to Carrot. "Next time, Corporal, just ignore him. He's only jealous you've got such a pretty girl waiting for you back home."

"Yeah, maybe. Sorry, Sarge. Guess I just lost my head a little."

"Well, get it found." Bucky gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. This wasn't the only fight he'd seen narrowly averted over the past few days, but it was the first involving the 107th. "We're all tense, it's been a rough two weeks, but now we're here you can't go letting Wells, or anyone else, get to you. Save it for the Krauts, alright?" Carrot nodded. "Good. Now, get yourself straightened up. I'm gonna send the guys back, it can't be much longer till we leave."

He left Carrot and made his way up the deck, eyes and ears open for the sound of another fight. Luckily, the prospect of debarkation seemed to have doused the flames which had erupted so often in close quarters; everybody seemed to be getting along with their hammock-neighbours.

In the area appropriated by the Screaming Eagles, he found Franklin, Tipper and Davies watching a game of poker, into which Wells had insinuated himself. Bucky nodded at the privates and they left the way he'd arrived, heading back to their own little corner of the tween. For a moment he stood watching as another round of cards was dealt. Wells had a two-pair of kings and tens. The last thing he wanted was another regiment pissed at his friend.

"He folds," Bucky said, plucking the cards from Wells' hands and laying them face down on the table.

"Sorry boys, my mom wants a word with me," Wells said, with an apologetic smile for the Screaming Eagles.

A little further down the deck, in the two-foot no-man's-land which separated the 101st from the 93rd, Bucky stopped his friend, waiting for Wells to turn and face him.

"You were out of order back there, Danny," he said.

"But funny, no?" Wells grinned. When Bucky didn't return the expression, the smile slipped from his face. "Damn, James, that's one hell of a poker face. Remind me never to play against you again." He rolled his eyes. "Alright. I'm sorry. Okay? You know I was just goofing around."

"At the start of the voyage you were goofing around. Now, with Carrot, you're just being plain mean. You know he's crazy-stupid where his girl's concerned. You were prodding him on purpose."

"Yeah." Wells sighed and ran a hand through his jet-black hair, his blue eyes troubled. "You got me."

"Do I get an explanation?"

"Hell no. You're not actually my mom, Barnes. I don't answer to you. And don't do that rank-pulling bullshit on me; we have the same rank an' I got seniority on account of the fact that I got to Last Stop before you." Bucky opened his mouth to object, but Wells hurried on. "Look, I said I'm sorry, and I mean it. That wasn't me being flippant. And when we get back, I'll apologise to Carrot too, okay?"

Bucky decided to let it rest. Whatever Wells' problem, he seemed ready to let it go. Probably just actual cabin-fever, this time. "Okay."

"And I appreciate you stopping Carrot from doin' anything stupid. I didn't wanna have to hurt the kid."

"Well, I had to stop one of you, and he listens to reason better than you."

"Amen."

"If you feel like you need to make someone your punching bag, do me a favour and lay off Carrot, okay?"

"You have my word." Proving, not for the first time during the voyage, that he really did run hot and cold, Wells threw an arm around Bucky's shoulders, and with a familiar grin and a nefarious gleam in his eyes, said, "So, Sergeant Barnes. Do you know much about the slave trade?"