We Were Soldiers
72. Check Up
"How do you sleep, Sergeant?" asked the doctor in charge of his physical assessment.
"On my back, usually," Bucky replied. "Though, sometimes I roll to one side during the night. And one time, I woke up on my front."
The doctor gave Bucky one of those looks. It was a look that said he'd been through this before and no longer found that joke funny, if he ever had.
"I sleep like anyone who's been on the front lines," Bucky clarified. "As much as I can, whenever I can."
"Any insomnia?"
"Nope."
"You know, doctors can tell when they're being lied to."
Bucky pushed away the irritated voice in his head that told him he didn't need to be going through this. Colonel Phillips had ordered medical evaluations on everybody who'd come out of Krausberg, and wouldn't make any exceptions. It was only Bucky's second day in England, and he would've preferred a few days to put on some weight before being put through a medical exam. Falsworth's 'great place to eat' had been blitzed months ago, so they'd settled for baked potatoes lathered with butter from a street vendor. The potatoes had been surprisingly delicious; Bucky had eaten three, to Steve's smiling approval.
"Fine. Sometimes I have nightmares," he admitted. They'd been infrequent since the start of the war, when they'd lost their first man. Became more frequent but tolerable as the war progressed. They'd only gotten bad enough to wake him since Krausberg. Last night had been the worst. The same nightmare had recurred three times, and after the third, he'd given up trying to sleep. Even though he'd left Krausberg, that place was still with him. In his head and in his bones, like a sickness no doctor could carve out.
"And how's your appetite?"
"Pretty good. I ate three baked potatoes last night."
"And your physical state? Any weakness? Lethargy? Trembling or shaking? Nausea? Chronic p—"
"No. Nothing like that. I'm fine, Doc. Really."
The doctor's skeptical expression suggested he didn't believe Bucky about that, either.
"A nurse will be along in a few minutes to take some observations. Please co-operate with her."
Bucky reclined on the bed as the doctor pulled aside the curtain and stepped into the next cubicle. Falsworth and Dugan had already been through this, earlier in the morning. In the cubicle next door, Dernier was replying in broken English as the doctor subjected him to the same interrogation as Bucky. Next it would be Jones and Morita's turn. Bucky was already plotting how to scare them with a horror story about the physical.
"Good morning, Sergeant Barnes," a feminine voice called. A nurse in a white uniform entered the cubicle, clipboard in hands. She was a dour-faced woman with a shock of red beneath her white hat, and every muscle in Bucky's body tensed at the sight of her. Nurse Green had red curls just like that. Why couldn't he have gotten some smiling, plump, Audrey-looking nurse?
"Morning," he muttered.
She didn't seem bothered by his less than enthusiastic greeting. From a small cupboard next to his bed, she pulled out a cuff. "Let's start with your blood pressure."
The physical exam was almost exactly the same as the one he'd endured at Last Stop before being shipped out from the States. She took his blood pressure, blood and urine samples, she tested his reflexes, listened to his heartbeat and breathing, and made sure he still had the ability to cough on command. She noted her results on her clipboard chart, then snapped the thing closed with such force that it made him jump.
"So, when do I get the results?" he asked as he buttoned up his shirt.
"All recommendations will be handed to commanding officers within the next few days," she said.
"Recommendations?"
"On how long a period each soldier requires to recover from his injuries and ailments. You'll receive your physical exam results once your CO decides how to proceed with your recuperation."
"Well, I feel fine," Bucky lied. "A few days' leave and I'll be ready to head back into the fight." Of course, that might mean leaving Steve. Bucky's best friend was determined to become a real soldier, which might mean revisiting boot camp so he could get his proper basic training. Or maybe Phillips would want to keep Steve back for special missions. How different would France have been, if Steve had been there? The 107th might not have lost so many men.
The nurse didn't bother engaging him in conversation about just how 'fine' he was. She merely grunted and moved on to the next cubicle. Bucky wasn't in the mood to walk the streets of London alone, so he waited in the hospital reception for Dernier. When the Frenchman appeared, it was with grumbles Bucky didn't understand but could guess the subject of.
"Wanna find somewhere to get lunch?" Bucky offered.
Dernier sighed and threw his hands up melodramatically above his head. "Ahh, English food! Only little better than starving. Oui, we eat."
The brisk November air nipped at their skin when they stepped out of the hospital. Bucky hunched his shoulders and wished for one of the scarves his mother used to knit for him when he was a kid. Around him, the people of London did their best to ignore the weather. Snippets of their conversations reached his ears: two women complained about the size of rationed bread loves shrinking again; a group of suited men held council about the perceived state of the Eastern Front; a couple with a baby in a pram argued over what to cook for some family gathering.
Were these the conversations happening back home? Was New York in a similar limbo, suspended between state of war and life goes on? Or, to the people back home, was the war more like a moving picture, something still removed from everyday life? Steve said a Nazi in New York had made headlines because such events were unheard of. If that was the case, if the war was still nothing more than a storm brewing on the distant horizon, then everything Bucky had been through was worth it. Mom and Dad, Mary-Ann and Janet, Charlie, all his friends… keeping them safe was why he was out here.
What if they took that away from him? Made him go back home? He'd signed up to protect his family, and others like them. Without that, he'd be reliant on everybody else to do his job for him. He'd sit safe in some office pushing paper around a desk while Gusty and Hodge and Steve kept up the fight. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. To distract himself from a plague of what ifs, he turned his attention to his companion. Dernier was almost a head shorter than Bucky, and in his civilian clothing he looked more at home on the streets of London than Bucky felt.
"So, Jacques," he said. "How come you're still with us? I mean, you're the only civilian outta Krausberg who came to England with us. I would'a thought you'd be itching to get back to France."
Dernier shrugged. "I 'ave intel to give. Maybe I can 'elp from this side of the Channel."
"You got any family, back in France?"
"Oui, one brother, one sister."
"Are they in the Resistance too?"
Dernier shook his head, then offered Bucky a grin. "I forbade it. Older brother's right."
"We have something in common, then. I'm an older brother, too. I've got a brother and two sisters." Bucky cast his mind back to his former older-brother duties. "You ever have to warn guys to treat your sister right?"
"Of course. Most important job."
They wandered along the banks of the Thames until they found a small shop selling cooked food. A line of people queueing right out the door led Bucky to believe it might be a good place to eat, so they joined the back of the line and people-watched while they waited. The folks in London reminded him of those in Plymouth. Though parts of their city lay in rubble, nobody seemed particularly fazed by the idea that at any moment the Luftwaffe might come back to finish the job. He supposed that after years of living with air raids, it was possible to become desensitised to the horrors of nightly bombings. Like Falsworth said: why bother filling in the potholes when by tomorrow, the road might be gone?
Would the people back home face adversity with such aplomb? He wasn't so sure. The attack on Pearl Harbour had sent shockwaves through the U.S. Perhaps the President had been preparing for war, but the people had become complacent, believing themselves safe. Reality had delivered them a rude awakening.
By the time they reached the front of the queue, Bucky's stomach was growling so loud that people further up the line were giving him funny looks. Even Dernier's face was scrunched up with the effort of trying not to laugh. Still, judging by the heavy aroma of grease and oil, whatever was being served here oughta be good.
Bucky stepped up to the counter and was handed a newspaper-wrapped package. A similar package was then thrust into Dernier's waiting hands. The man standing behind the counter said, "One bob, sirs."
"Bob?" Bucky asked Dernier. Who the hell was Bob? Dernier merely shrugged.
"The price of your lunch is one shilling," the counter-man said patiently.
"But I haven't even ordered!"
"This is a fish and chips shop. Fish and chips is the only thing we sell, unless you want sausage and chips. But sausage is rationed, so it'll cost you two bob bit, plus a ha'penny if you want gravy."
Bucky opened his mouth to argue that he didn't particularly want fish and potato chips, but his stomach got a whiff of the smell coming from the newspaper packet and growled a new warning at him. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of English coins left over from Plymouth and selected a shilling. "You got money?" he asked Dernier, who shook his head. So he paid for Dernier's lunch, too.
"Merci, mon ami," the Frenchman said as they stepped out onto the street. "Et bon appétite!"
"What kinda lunatics serve fish with potato chips?" Bucky asked him. The package in his hands felt warm and heavy. Maybe it was a really big fish. In his head, he pictured a whole fish, scales and all, boiled and covered with chips. His stomach promptly ceased growling.
"Nah, is different chips." Dernier unwrapped his food and showed Bucky the contents. They turned out to be steak fries, shiny with oil, and a piece of battered fish so large that it might've actually been a whale. "See?" Picking up a tiny, flat wooden fork from the top of the pile of steak fries, Dernier speared one and made a great show of being offended by British cuisine before finally shoving the thing in his mouth.
Bucky found an equally large portion inside his own newspaper wrapping. Each time he tried to spear a chip, it fell off his tiny fork, so in the end he abandoned the utensil and used his fingers. They walked as they ate, and it didn't take Bucky long to polish off the whole thing. He thought it might just be the best thing he'd ever eaten. After he was done, he licked his fingers clean and tossed the empty wrapper into a trash can. Dernier, who was still only halfway through his lunch, looked at Bucky as if he was mad.
"Très hungry?"
"I could eat a horse."
Dernier chuckled. "Ask for sausage. You might."
Bucky made a mental note to avoid the sausage in future.
: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :
The heels of Peggy's shoes tapped out a click clack click clack rhythm that echoed down the corridor as she kept pace beside Colonel Phillips. Ahead, Howard strode on, both eager and animated. He talked to himself as he walked, quiet phrases of "Really didn't think he'd be able to do it…" and "Hope he didn't bring us all this way for nothing."
His skepticism was understandable. The chances of anybody ever replicating Erskine's serum were so unlikely that Howard had barely even bothered trying. Alice's white rabbit, he'd called it. Chasing a dream.
Kaufmann and his people had fewer hangups and more reason to succeed. Unlike Howard, they didn't have dozens of other projects they could be working on. For security reasons, they were never given more than one or two projects at a time. It allowed them to focus without dividing their concentration or resources. Hopefully, their work would now pay dividends.
Agent Pollard was waiting for them outside the laboratory. Phillips had recruited him straight out of the SIS, and Peggy had to admit, he made a competent SSR Agent. He offered nods as the cadre approached, and didn't even budge when Stark tried to inch around him.
"Welcome back, Colonel Phillips. Agent Carter. Mister Stark."
"Agent Pollard," Phillips returned. "Please tell me Kaufmann isn't leading us on a wild goose chase."
Pollard held up his hands. "I'm no scientist, Colonel"—Howard smirked at that—"but Kaufmann's people have been unusually excited these past couple of weeks, and I don't think it's over the new sausages the cook's been making."
"Alright, let's speak to him, then."
Pollard stepped aside and opened the doors, allowing the others to enter first. In the lab, a dozen or so scientists were hard at work, some writing out notes at their desks, others titrating liquids between beakers, others quietly discussing a series of complex equations etched onto a chalkboard. A few glanced up at the newcomers, but they swiftly resumed their work.
"You're right, Agent Pollard," said Howard. "They're positively ecstatic."
General Kaufmann detached himself from the group around the chalkboard and straightened up as he approached. He wasn't a tall man, only an inch or two taller than Peggy herself, but he strove for every iota of height now. Peggy guessed that whatever news he had to impart was either very good, or very bad.
They went through another round of greetings. Kaufmann offered stiff nods whilst Stark practically hopped from foot to food with impatience.
"Now," said Phillips, "would you mind telling us what was so important you had to drag us back from the front lines?"
The smile offered by Kaufmann wasn't cold, but it was definitely on the frostier side of friendly. "Of course. Please, step this way, Colonel."
He took them to a smaller room to one side of the lab, where cages of mice were housed. Peggy wrinkled her nose at the acrid stench of rodent urine; Stark actually pulled out his kerchief and covered his nose and mouth.
"We've been running tests," Kaufmann explained. "We hoped to reproduce the effects of the serum first in mice, then in dogs, then monkeys."
"And how'd that work out for you?"
Kaufmann stopped in front of a cage that was covered by a dark sheet. He pulled the sheet off, revealing a bunch of small, white furry bodies, twisted and in the early stages of decay.
"Not well." Kaufmann put the sheet back. "But then, you already suspected this, no?"
"I don't like to play guessing games, General Kaufmann," said Phillips. "If you've got something to say, say it straight."
"Interesting." Kaufmann tapped his chin with his finger as if truly fascinated by Phillips' words. "You don't like guessing games, yet that is exactly what you have had my men and I playing for the past five months. We have figured out why none of our experiments work, why our calculations are always off: we do not possess the full set of data. We have been trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle using only half of the pieces. Until we have the other half, we can go no further."
Peggy fixed her gaze on the nearest cage of mice to avoid looking at Kaufmann, certain that he'd read the truth in her eyes. Despite her skill at espionage and deception, she was frighteningly bad at lying.
"And if you had the other half?" Phillips asked. "How long do you think it would take to produce a viable formula?"
"Well, that depends on how far Stark has got with his own research." Kaufmann turned to face Howard. "I assume you've been dedicating all of your efforts to unravelling the mysteries of this serum, Herr Stark?"
Howard cleared his throat. "Well, you know how things are, out in the field. Constant interruptions, lack of proper lab facilities, incompetent assistants… and I'm sure they'd replaced the coffee with mud before we set off back to England. If I'd had the proper amenities, my third of the research—"
"Third?!" Kaufmann's face swiftly changed from pale to beetroot.
"Oh, crap. Did I say third? I meant half. I'm no good at math that doesn't have Greek symbols in it."
But Kaufmann had already dismissed Howard. He turned to Phillips, eyes narrowed. "Colonel, this is unacceptable! You gave us the task of reproducing the serum from a single blood sample, then made our task impossible by with-holding vital components from us! For months we have toiled, long hours, working through the night, with the hopes that this serum would provide the key to winning the war. And now we find out our hard work has been for nothing!"
Peggy kept her mouth firmly closed, suppressing the desire to speak her mind. Kaufmann's people might've been working hard, but she knew Kaufmann himself was more of a leader than a scientist… and that he preferred to spend his evenings dining out and being entertained by easy young men with unnatural predilections. She doubted he'd done more than show up at the lab once a week for briefings.
"After all this time, you still do not not trust us," Kaufmann accused.
Phillips switched on his stone-faced scowl. "It's not a matter of trust—"
"Your actions say otherwise."
"The data was split into three because we can't afford to have a single person or group in possession of the full set. Not you, not Stark, not anybody. That blood sample is what gives our research the edge over Schmidt and his cronies."
Kaufmann's right hand reflexively curled into a fist at the mention of Schmidt's name. He'd sworn vengeance on the man who'd betrayed and replaced him, and Peggy knew he wouldn't rest until HYDRA had fallen. In truth, she suspected Kaufmann's days in Hitler's inner circle would've been numbered even without Schmidt ready to take over the science division. Those closest to Hitler—Göring, Himmler, Goebbels—had felt threatened by the power Sturmabteilung held. An army of peasants with ideas above their station, some of them sharing their leader's personal tastes. They saw Kaufmann as a direct threat to Hitler's power, and to the moral purity he promised to restore.
"Then you will have to give us something else to work on; some other project," Kaufmann said through a clenched jaw. "It is pointless for us to work on something that will never come to fruition."
Peggy's heart sank to somewhere around her stomach. If Kaufmann and the others couldn't recreate the formula, Abraham's legacy would die with him. Erskine hadn't envisioned an army of super-soldiers, but a few carefully selected individuals to imbue with the strength needed to fight an enemy in their own territory. If Project Lazarus couldn't bring Project Rebirth back to life, Steve Rogers would be the first and last recipient of the serum: the only person physically capable of standing up to Schmidt.
"Colonel," she said, turning to face Phillips, "perhaps it's time to accept that the only way to move forward is to take risks."
Kaufmann leapt at the lifeline she offered. "If you provide me with all of the available data, I can promise results within six months."
"A bold promise," said Phillips. He glanced to Howard from the corner of his eye. "Stark?"
Howard hesitated for only a moment. "Well, it would certainly speed things along."
"Very well. Stark, you'll supervise Project Lazarus from here."
"But Colonel, I do so love working on the front lines, constantly being shot at, drinking coffee that's more mud than not, peeing into a ditch—oh wait, I hate those things. I'd be happy to work with Kaufmann's team."
"Glad to hear it."
"Who has the other third of the research?" Kaufmann asked.
"A colleague of mine in Sweden, Doctor Per Selvig. He's the professor of molecular biology at Stockholm University."
"And how goes his progress with the formula?"
"I don't know. Haven't heard from him since I sent him the data. Then again, I have been out in the middle of nowhere, and this isn't exactly the sort of conversation you telegraph. Otherwise, you wouldn't have asked us to return to England to have this discussion," Howard pointed out.
Phillips glanced at his watch, and something like displeasure slid across his face. "I'm running late for a meeting with Senator Brandt's aide and a half-dozen politicians and generals. Agent Pollard, can I leave you in charge of assisting Mr. Stark with any logistics?"
"Of course, Colonel." And, for a wonder, Pollard managed to sound like he didn't mind being assigned as Howard's errand-boy.
"Good. Carter can help." Damn. "If you'll excuse me."
Peggy offered a salute at the departing Colonel, then turned her focus back to Stark, who was already issuing instructions.
"I'll need my workbench bringing in, and you'll have to requisition me the use of the electron microscope from Cambridge University—there's one in London, but Cambridge's is better. I'll need two competent assistants, one with a PhD in biochemistry, another with a PhD in medicine." Pollard dutifully jotted the instructions down in his notebook. "And this is the most important part, so be sure to write it in big letters: I'll need a coffee machine installing in the corner. The beans need to be the finest Colombian beans you can import, and they have to be crushed for exactly thirty-six seconds. Not too fine, not too coarse. Thirty-six seconds. Colombian. You got that?"
"Is he kidding?" Pollard asked Peggy.
"I never joke about coffee," Howard assured him. "Now, Peg, I need you to place a long-distance call to Dr. Selvig and ask him to send the data I gave him from Mr. Rogers' blood sample. Best wait until later, though, as he's probably teaching right now. He hates it when his classes are interrupted."
"Will that be all?" she asked, in her wryest tone. "Perhaps I could draw you a bath?"
Howard winked. "Maybe later. Right now, I have sciencing to do, and you two non-scientists are in my hair."
"I think we've been dismissed," said Pollard, as Howard pottered over to the chalkboard and began erasing calculations with his shirt sleeve.
Peggy set off towards the main door, and Pollard hurried after her. "I'd make the coffee machine the first priority, if I were you," she told him. "Howard's very grumpy when he's gone too long without a cup of the stuff."
"Noted."
They passed through the corridor to the click clack click clack of Peggy's heels. She kept up the fastest pace she could manage without running, itching beneath her skin to get away from a silence which might very soon start to feel uncomfortable.
Just as they reached the building's front doors, Pollard struck.
"So. I know a restaurant in Camden Town that still serves real prime steak."
"I've always found steak to be overrated."
"Of course, steak isn't the only thing they serve," he continued. "They do a mean plate pie. Or, if you've suddenly decided to become vegetarian, they have this thing called a 'nut roast' that they serve with all the trimmings of a Sunday lunch. What do you say?"
"Are you asking me out to dinner, Agent Pollard?"
He snorted quietly. "Agent Pollard? Seriously, Peggy? After how long we've known each other? And yes, I'm asking you out to dinner. In fact, I'm still waiting for an answer from the last time I asked you out to dinner. Remember how you said, ask me again the next time I'm in England? That was right before you shipped off to God only knows where, and I had no idea whether I'd see you again. So, you're here, and I'm asking again."
She stopped and turned to face him. With his floppy brown hair and honest brown eyes, he could have the pick of any woman he wanted. He'd held a candle for her since the day they'd met, he a wet-behind-the-ears SIS operative, she a code-breaker working out of Bletchley Park. Nothing had become of it, because she was engaged to Fred at the time, and he was too much of a gentleman to interfere with a promised woman.
After she and Fred broke up, he'd been a shoulder to cry on, never once trying to take advantage or overstep his bounds. By the time she'd felt emotionally ready to move on from Fred, she'd become a field agent in the SSR. When Pollard finally worked up to asking her out, it was on the eve of her first mission abroad. Bad timing had kept her from accepting his offers so far. She didn't want to say yes and have him waiting around for a dinner that might never come because her job was inherently dangerous. Saying yes would've tempted fate a little too much for her liking.
Now, she had a different reason for not wanting to accept his offer. That reason was a six-foot two-inch blond-haired American whose smile made her heart turn somersaults in her chest.
"Francis, I have a lot on my mind right now," she said. "And you've been a good friend for such a long time, I'm worried that trying to be more will complicate that."
"I'm not asking you to marry me, Peggy. I'm not asking to court you, or be more than what we already have. All I'm asking for is dinner. A chance for us to catch up on each other's lives outside of work. Remember how we used to go walking down by the lake at Bletchley during lunch hour? How we'd sit out on the grass when it was nice, or eat in the café when it rained? We talked, we laughed, we had a good time. As friends. I miss that."
"Surely you have other friends," she chided gently.
"Of course. But I miss your level head and the way you see right to the heart of things."
When she realised she was biting her lower lip, she silently chastised herself. How did she always manage to fall into the trap of over-thinking things? Really, it ought to be simple. She should accept Pollard's offer and have dinner with him, because it was just dinner, and it didn't mean anything. And yet, a pair of blue eyes flecked with green flashed through her mind, silently accusing even though there was nothing to accuse her of. She and Steve Rogers were colleagues. Not even friends, like she was with Francis. She owed him nothing, except that mild hint of a dance they'd discussed in the back of an SSR car en route to the secret Brooklyn lab.
"I'll think about it," she offered, hating herself for the cop-out.
"Alright." He stopped by the door, opening it for her. "I can tell that's as good as I'm going to get right now. You know where to find me if you decide you're hungry." He descended the steps from the door to the pavement, and stopped by a car waiting out front. "You need a lift?"
His chivalry made her feel even more lousy over not having the guts to turn down his offer. "No, my hotel's just around the corner. But thanks."
He didn't push the matter. After a quick goodbye wave, he slid into the car and off it went. Not for the first time, Peggy wondered why it was so difficult to turn down an offer from a gentleman. If Francis was a jerk, like Private Hodge, she could've quickly put him in his place and made it absolutely clear there would never be any fraternising between them. But Francis was better than that, and he deserved more than cold scorn.
"Margaret Elizabeth Carter, you need to grow a spine," she muttered to herself. "And sort out your priorities whilst you're at it: now is not the time to be thinking about romance—with anybody."
Now, all she had to do was get her heart to agree with her head, and everything would be fine.
Author's note: You may remember Kaufmann from chapter 52.