We Were Soldiers

51. Losses

Bucky opened his eyes, and reality punched him in the gut. He pushed himself up, out of his bedroll, and his head pounded angrily. Around him, the rest of the team were asleep, except for Baker, who was on watch. A dense white fog clung to the Alps, and where it touched his skin it chilled him to the bone. His mouth was dry, and despite having barely eaten in twenty-four hours, he felt sick. Limbs which yesterday morning had felt heavy as lead, now felt heavy as… something heavier than lead.

"What time is it?" he groaned.

"Nearly six," Baker replied.

Their voices woke Gusty, who yawned and sat up beneath his blanket. He looked bright-eyed and fresh, and Bucky momentarily hated him.

"How are you feeling, Sarge?"

"Like my head got pounded into the floor of a boxing ring, and then somebody attached lead weights to my limbs." He held out his hand. "Gimme the Benzedrine."

Gusty hesitated in a rather nervous way. "Sorry Sarge, but I can't."

"Sure you can." Bucky fought down his irritation. "Just take them out of your pocket and hand them over."

"I don't have them anymore."

"Who does?"

"Nobody. We… err… we dumped them in a stream not far from camp."

He felt his right hand clench into a fist. "Why?! I need those to keep my head clear!"

"They weren't keeping your head clear, Sarge. You were completely out of it. I know the doctors says Benzedrine is safe for short-term use, but you had a really, really bad reaction to them." When Bucky glared daggers at him, he added, "You thought you could sense evil!"

"Well, it made perfect sense at the time." He sank back down onto his bed roll. How was he gonna cope now? He'd die. Literally, die.

"Sarge, I've been doing some calculations from my map, and I think if we can march for fifteen hours, we'll be back at camp just after nightfall."

"You go on without me," he said. "I'll just lie here and wait for that stream to evaporate, and the water to move up into the atmosphere, and the rising elevation to produce clouds which will precipitate the Benzedrine back down on me."

"You're under a rock face, Sarge. The rain's not gonna catch you."

Damn.

That was okay. They had more Benzedrine back at the camp.

"Fifteen hours of marching?" Bucky mused. "Easy. Wake everyone. We'll set off right away."

Gusty roused the team and they broke camp without eating breakfast. Roberto chattered something in Italian, but Bucky didn't know what he was saying because he didn't have the book anymore. He guessed one of the men had taken it, but if that was true, none of them were owning up to it.

As they marched, Bucky's head began to clear. His gut stopped churning. His limbs grew lighter, less lead-like. He could recall with perfect clarity every thought and feeling he'd experienced the day before, and he knew that everything he had experienced was real. It wasn't like the time he'd been drugged by Nurse Green and thought he could find his way back to Steve in France. It wasn't the paranoia that told him everybody around him was a Nazi spy. It was something else. Something that, from the outside, looked completely and utterly nuts. But from the inside, it was perfectly sane. Even now, clearheaded again, he knew he hadn't been crazy. Just… seeing things in a different way.

For lunch they had a thirty minute break, a drink of water, and another shared can of beans. Roberto grumbled in Italian for the whole thirty minutes, and only stopped grumbling when Gusty pulled out his Colt and scowled at the guy. It seemed Roberto spoke pistol better than he spoke English.

As they continued their march, Bucky's focus wavered. Last night's dreams, byproduct of a chemically affected mind, kept coming back to him no matter how hard he tried to push them away. Really, it was foolish. Steve was back home, probably still getting into his own fair share of fights, but he had nothing to do with the war, and even less to do with the malevolent HYDRA flag that had been displayed in the bunkers they'd captured.

And Wells being attacked by books? Madness, no matter how sane it had seemed at the time. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that his friends were in danger. And not only were they in danger, they were out of his reach. Whatever they might be going through, he couldn't help them. And it was that which hurt him most of all.

Gusty's calculations held true. After fifteen hours of solid, leg-aching, back-breaking marching, they reached the SSR's camp. Even though he'd been clearheaded for several hours, he felt like it had been years since he'd last been here. Decades, even.

He dismissed the team to their regiment's tent, and on second thought, took Gusty with him to the command tent. For the better part of a day, Bucky's mind had been in an altered state. He needed somebody who'd been clear-headed the whole time to stand in his corner. He gestured Roberto to follow him, and the three of them set off for the centre of the camp.

Phillips was in the command tent, dictating a condolence letter to one of his administration staff. The malaria, it seemed, had claimed its first victim. Bucky didn't catch the name of the dead soldier, and as much as he wanted to ask, he first needed to report his mission's outcome to the colonel.

As soon as the colonel finished his dictation, his eyes jumped up to Bucky's face, silently inviting him into the command tent. At the same time, he dismissed the man at the typewriter.

"Sergeant, you're late. Report," he instructed, after Bucky's rushed salute.

"Sir, we've brought back the Italian Resistance member, as instructed. His name's Roberto," Bucky told him, with a gesture for the Italian. "But one of my men was injured, and I left three others behind to help him. I'd like permission to return to the field, to bring them home."

"First things first, Sergeant," Phillips said. His grey eyes danced over Roberto, taking in the man's unwashed appearance. "Start from the beginning and give me a full report."

Bucky wrestled his own impatience into submission. He gave a swift report of the journey to San Vinadio. Spent longer relaying the events that had transpired in the village, including how they'd ended up shooting two Nazis and trashed their cars so they couldn't be followed. Phillips was quiet, until that point.

"That was good thinking," the colonel said. "What gave you the idea to put rice in their radiators?"

"Um, Private Hawkins, sir. Apparently, his older brother was something of a teenage menace. Rice in the radiators was his favourite way of getting back at teachers who gave him detention."

"Well, I hope he's not still making a habit of it."

"No sir," Bucky assured him. "He's dead. Part of a tank crew that took a hit somewhere in Africa right before we shipped out for Europe."

"Hmph. What happened after you made your escape from San Vinadio?"

"I'm not exactly sure. It's possible we were unlucky and crossed paths with a German patrol… but they were well kitted out, and they were on us so fast that they'd either been given warning we were in the area, or they'd spotted our approach and set up an ambush."

"There's no heavy Nazi presence in the Alps," Phillips mused as his eyes strayed to a map laid out on the table. "However, they may have stationed small garrisons at various key positions. With the right radio equipment, the ones you left cooking rice in San Vinadio may have warned the others in the area to be on alert."

"Private Stoller was hit," Bucky continued. Memories of that day came flooding back, and he swallowed the bile that was trying to rise in his throat. "We did our best, but his leg was too badly damaged. We had to put a tourniquet on him, sir. He'd lost a lot of blood, and we had to carry him. When we realised we'd run out of rations before getting back, we split the teams. I brought my team back fast we we could go. Sergeant Wells stayed behind with Privates Biggs and Pearson. They're a couple of days behind us, at most. If you give me a jeep I can retrace my route, find them, and bring them back. Sir."

Phillips gave a quiet grunt as he ran his eyes over Bucky and Gusty, and their Italian prize. "Sergeant, you look like you just got home from a three-day drinking session. You and your men have done good work, and you've worked hard. You've earned some rest. I'll send the 69th for Sergeant Wells' team."

Bucky stepped forward, his mouth already open in objection. "Sir, I'd like to go along. They're my men. I left them. They're my responsibility."

The colonel lifted his hands to the sky—or at least, the roof of the khaki tent. "Lord save me from stubborn sergeants who think it's their responsibility to run off after each other every time one of them's out of sight for five damn minutes. Fine, Sergeant, you can go. But only to guide the 69th on the right path. You're not in charge. Do you understand?"

"Yessir."

"Sarge," Gusty spoke up. His voice was full of reproach. Bucky didn't have to be a mind reader to know what was coming.

"I'm fine, Gusty."

Too late. Colonel Phillips had picked up on the undercurrents. "What's this, Corporal?"

Gusty cringed a little. "Sergeant Barnes had a rather severe adverse reaction to Benzedrine, sir. I think he needs to be checked over by Dr. Peacock, and maybe Mr. Stark."

"It wasn't severe," Bucky scowled. He could feel his chances of being allowed on the rescue mission slipping from his grasp.

"You thought the words in a book were alive and attacking you, Sarge."

Bucky turned his gaze back to Colonel Phillips, and tried to put on his best 'sane' look. "I'm not crazy."

"Hospital. Now. Corporal Ferguson, you'll accompany the 69th."

"But sir—"

"Sergeant Barnes, do I have to threaten to have you dragged to the hospital by MPs? Again?"

Yes sir, you do, his defiant inner-Steve wanted to say. But this wasn't the time for an attitude, and defiance would not help Wells and the others.

"No, sir," he said with a sigh. "I'll go now."

"Good. Corporal Ferguson, find Sergeant Dugan and advise him to prep a team and report to me on the double."

Outside the tent, Gusty was immediately contrite.

"I'm sorry, Sarge, but I really do think you need a medical checkup."

"Just bring our friends home, Gusty," Bucky told him, with a clap on his shoulder. Gusty nodded, then dashed away to find Dugan. Bucky watched him go, then reported to the medical tent. It was the fastest way to prove he wasn't crazy, and that he was fit for duty. Hopefully he could be declared sane before the search team left. Hopefully Gusty would save him a spot in a jeep.

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

It took Doctor Peacock several hours to prove Bucky wasn't crazy, by which point the search team was long gone. Bucky begged and pleaded with Peacock for him to call in Stark to help with the analysis of his blood pressure, and heart rate, and the new blood sample he'd provided, but that merely set the doctor off on a rant about how he was perfectly capable of diagnosing his patient himself, and how he'd gotten his PhD whilst Stark had been tinkering with his first Erector Set, and did Stark even have a PhD? He thought not.

By the time Bucky was declared sane, it was pitch black outside and he was starving. All he wanted to do was pace and worry. Instead, he went to the mess and let the kitchen staff cook up his first proper meal in days. After dinner, he went back to the regiment's tent and fielded questions from the rest of the 107th about what had happened on the mission. They'd heard it all from Mex already, but they wanted it from him. For some reason, Bucky telling them the same things Mex had told them made it all real.

As he described how Stoller had been shot, how they'd put a tourniquet on him, how they'd eventually come the decision to split the team, he waited for somebody to speak up and tell him he'd done that wrong thing. That he'd made a terrible mistake. Nobody did. They nodded in understanding, sympathy and regret in their eyes. None of them accused him of making the situation worse, or letting the team down. They all understood. Understanding wasn't something Bucky needed. He needed somebody to tell him he'd made the wrong call.

He knew, then, that he couldn't let the brass promote him to lieutenant. He struggled to make the tough calls. Second-guessed himself all the time. Worried constantly over every little thing that could go wrong. The men needed somebody better that that. They needed somebody they could trust. Somebody who wouldn't spend his time worrying and obsessing and doubting himself. It would have to be Wells. He was better at making hard choices than Bucky. He was a better sergeant. He'd proven that time and time again.

Sleep finally found Bucky, stealing over him slowly as he lay in his bed worrying about the men he'd left behind, obsessing over what might be going wrong, doubting himself for the thousandth time.

The next morning, en route to the mess tent with a group from the 107th, Bucky spied a familiar figure cutting their way through the camp, preceded by an air that was perpetually frosty.

"Agent Carter!" He jogged up to her and had to resist the urge to salute when she glared at him.

"Sergeant Barnes, if this is about the search team, then I haven't heard any more than you."

"It isn't," he said. Even asleep, his mind had been alert for the sound of returning jeep engines. "I wanted to know if you got what you needed outta Roberto. That his intel was sound."

"Colonel Phillips is debriefing him," she said. "What and when he chooses to share the results of that debriefing is down to him."

"But the guy doesn't speak any English."

She pursed her lips before answering. "We have someone who can translate."

Bucky was literally gobsmacked. "If you had someone who can translate Italian, why didn't you sent them to go collect Roberto? One of my men got shot, and more could be injured, and you're telling me that someone else could'a done the job?"

"I never said or even implied that, Sergeant," she countered. "We have someone who can translate, yes, but that person was required here. Why do you think you and your team were sent? It was a dangerous mission."

"I get it. We're expendable."

"You're competent, Sergeant Barnes. Even Howard has said as much, and he's not a man easily impressed." She glanced around, as if afraid of being overheard. "Your team went into hostile territory, pulled out a member of the Italian Resistance, put paid to any pursuit, were later ambushed by Nazis and still managed to make it back and complete the mission. You weren't sent because you're expendable; you were sent because we knew you would succeed."

She left him to chew on that thought. Was it true? He'd always imagined the rest of the SSR thought of the 107th as something of a joke. It was true that they'd done more combat missions than anyone else in the company, but he'd thought that was because the brass didn't care about losing men from the 107th. Had he got it wrong? Maybe Agent Carter was right. After all, if Bucky had taken whoever was able to translate, and that person had been hurt like Stoller, or killed before making it back, there would have been nobody left to translate whatever Roberto was saying.

The day dragged on and on. Bucky ate breakfast with the rest of the regiment, washed his combat uniform, polished his boots, serviced his rifle and sidearm, then settled on his bed to write letters home. There wasn't much new he could tell his family, but he just wanted to write. He never told them in his letters about how difficult it was at times, never spoke of the friends he'd lost nor the lives he'd taken. They didn't need to hear about that. Instead, he told them of the friends he'd made, the battles he'd won, and the things he missed from home.

It was late afternoon, and he was halfway through his letter to Steve, when he heard the familiar throbbing purr of a pair of jeep engines pass by on their way to the motor pool. Bucky's pulse raced as he pushed himself up from his bed, shoved the cap on his pen and the stopper on his ink bottle. He jogged toward the motor pool and saw two men jump down from the drivers' seats of the vehicles. One was Dugan, and his light eyebrows lowered into a frown when he spotted Bucky.

"Where are my men?" he demanded without preamble.

"We dropped most of them off at the hospital tent," Dugan said. "Wells went to the river, to wash up. You should go talk to him; I gotta report to the brass."

It felt like a brush-off, but he didn't get chance to question Dugan further, because the man nodded to his fellow driver then set off in the direction of the command tent, his broad shoulders squared.

Bucky took the shortest route he knew down to the river. It didn't make sense. Why wouldn't Wells accompany Stoller to the hospital tent? Unless… Bucky's blood ran cold. Was Stoller dead? Had he not made it back? Had Wells tried to loosen the tourniquet and accidentally killed him? No… no, Wells knew you couldn't take a tourniquet off once it had been on for over half an hour. He wasn't negligent. He wasn't stupid. He wouldn't have done that. Not by mistake…

When he spotted a figure standing in the river, the water up to his knees, he halted. Wells had taken his boots off, and left his blood-stained jacket on top of them on the silty bank. He dipped his hands down into the water and washed away some of the dried blood that had soaked both hands and arms up to his elbows. There was more blood now than there had been when Bucky left.

"Are you injured?" he asked, then mentally kicked himself. Of course Wells wasn't injured. If he was, he'd be in the hospital tent. The guy barely needed an excuse to visit the hospital.

Wells didn't turn around to face him, but he shook his head. "We dropped Stoller off at the hospital. The medic with the 69th said he'll probably live. They're taking his leg off as we speak."

Relief and nausea battled for domination of Bucky's gut. He'd known Stoller would lose his leg, but thinking about the surgery, and the doctors going through the bone and necrotic flesh, made him queasy.

"You did it," Bucky said. "You brought Stoller back, just like you said you would. I shouldn't've doubted you." There was no response. Wells just kept washing the blood from his skin. "Why aren't you happier?"

"We ran into more Nazis."

What little relief Bucky had felt about Stoller quickly fled. "Oh God. Who'd we lose?"

The answer came out flat, emotionless. "Pearson. Biggs and I were taking our turn at carrying Stoller; Pearson had point, and they got the jump on him. We barely had time to get our own weapons out. We got Stoller back, but we lost another man in the process. We couldn't even take the time to stop and give Pearson a proper burial. I got his tags."

"It isn't your fault, Wells. Pearson knew what he was volunteering for."

"Tell that to his family."

There was nothing Bucky could say to that. Instead, he asked, "How'd Stoller take it?"

"Badly. Blamed himself." Wells paused in mid-scoop. "I had to put a gun in his hand. After we lost Pearson, Biggs and I couldn't carry Stoller and keep an eye on our surroundings. I gave him his pistol back. Told him he had to be our eyes. That if he used that gun on himself, Pearson would'a died for nothing. That now he had a duty to live, to make Pearson's sacrifice mean something."

Bucky didn't bother telling Wells how risky that had been; he knew it already. Imagining that conversation, putting a gun in a man's hand and convincing him not to kill himself… it wasn't a pleasant thought, and Bucky was glad he hadn't been the one to do it. "Do you need anything?" he asked.

"A hot meal and a long sleep."

"I'll tell the kitchen staff to make something for you and the others."

"Thanks."

For a moment, he hung back. He could feel the heavy cloud sitting over Wells' head, but he knew his friend wouldn't accept sympathy for the loss or praise for getting everyone else back. "It wasn't your fault," he said at last.

"I know," Wells replied. But Bucky didn't believe him.

He left Wells to his cleansing, and decided not to mention anything about what Carter had told him. Somehow, he doubted that knowledge would be any sort of comfort to him after losing Pearson.