We Were Soldiers
77. The Madding Crowd
Every day, Steve held himself back. When the recruits ran laps, he slowed his pace to stay in the middle of the pack. When they performed drill, he shortened his stride to keep time with the rest. At the shooting range, he purposely aimed some of his shots at the edges of his targets. And on the obstacle course, he crawled and jumped and climbed and ran no faster than the fastest of the other men.
The obstacle course was loathed by everyone, including Steve. Running it wasn't so much a training exercise, as a form of torture. The projected completion time for the course was eight minutes and thirty-five seconds, and even if he hadn't been holding himself back, Steve would've struggled with the time. Perhaps in summer, in fair conditions, the time was achievable, but right now, it took almost double that for the fastest recruit to finish.
Steve was no stranger to assault courses, having run—or wheezed—Camp Lehigh's course more times than he could count, but Pirbright's assault course was something else. It started with a hundred metre dash to a series of foxholes and embankments which could be used as shelter whilst advancing. The shelter was needed because the camp's drill sergeants fired blanks at the recruits, to "get you used to advancing whilst being shot at, and help turn you boys into men."
Reprieve from the gunfire came in the form of a long trench at the top of the hill, through which the recruits had to run in a crouch because it was only a meter and a half deep. Steve suspected the architects of the trench had been inspired by the Cretan Labyrinth, because it wound and twisted its way like a snake through the ground, and though there were no branches or dead-ends, it was difficult to shake the feeling that you'd somehow been turned around and were going entirely the wrong way.
Recruits came out of the trench knuckling their aching backs, but were immediately faced with a ten-foot high wall. In times long past, the wall had been climbable, but years' worth of recruits had worn the hand-holds and foot-holds smooth. The only way to scale the wall now was for one soldier to give another a boost up, and then be pulled up in turn. Though Steve knew he was capable of scaling the wall himself in a single jump, he didn't. One purpose of the assault course was to aid in team-building, and if Steve went on ahead, he would never be part of the team. They would look at him in the same way he had been looked at all his life; as somebody different. The reasons for being different had changed, but the fact that he wasn't like others hadn't.
At the wall, he took the job of giving others a leg up. Those who made it to the top of the wall suspended themselves there, leaning down to help haul their companions up. It took both Tiberius and Tickle to pull Steve up, and they complained the whole time that he was heavier than he looked. If only they'd seen him six months ago!
The torture continued in the form of a long drainage tunnel. Rats in the pipes were what Steve and his friends called themselves as they crawled through the tunnel on hands and knees, sloshing though water and mud that had collected there over the winter.
The tunnel brought them to a bridge over a wide river, though bridge was a very generous word for what was basically a tightrope with two other ropes at waist-height for holding. After the first few disastrous attempts to walk along the rope head-on ended with recruits sliding off into the rain-swollen river, the men quickly learnt to shimmy along it sideways.
After the bridge, they climbed a knotted rope to the top of a concrete lookout tower. Why the drill sergeants didn't just let the men take the stairs, Steve didn't know, and—remembering his promise to Bucky about not mouthing off—he didn't ask. At the top of the tower, they took a zip-wire down to what could only be described as a bog.
Although the whole of the course was waterlogged, the bog was the most rancid, foul-smelling, disgusting section the recruits had to pass though. It was also the site of the barbed-wire crawl. Rifles had to be wrapped in plastic to prevent them becoming flooded as the men crawled their way through vegetable matter rotting in standing, sulphur-smelling water.
They men came out of the crawl sodden, caked in mud, smelling like rotten eggs, and ready for a shower. Unfortunately, the crawl only marked the half-way point of the course. Straight after the crawl, they had a hundred metre dash to the cargo net, and every man who went up the net took his life in his own hands. It was an ancient thing, the ropes slippery with algae and moss, the 20-foot high frame rickety and rotten.
Into the wooden frame, initials and dates had been carved, and even short messages. PB and TC 1926 was barely legible beneath a newer scrawling of Do the Nazis have to do this? At the very top, Steve spotted a heart-shaped carving in the rotting wood, but the initials within were too badly weathered to read. No doubt some lonely soldier had carved it as a tribute to his love back home—a tribute that time was slowly erasing.
The cargo net, though the driest section of the course, was also the most perilous. Because it was so shot with damp and rot, and because it rocked so dangerously while in use, only three men were allowed to climb it at any one time, which significantly slowed the whole team's progress. Progress was slowed further by Willy McDonald, a good-natured Glaswegian who was even heavier than Steve for all the wrong reasons. So heavy was Willy, that the drill sergeants made him climb the net solo, in case his weight caused the whole thing to collapse. Pity stirred in Steve's heart as he and the others were forced to watch the sweaty, red-faced young man try to haul his bulk up the rickety old net. Briscoe and his friends jeered at Willy's slow progress. Steve suspected the whole 'team-building' aspect of the course had gone right over Briscoe's head.
More tunnels and trenches and draining pipes awaited the men after their brush with the cargo net, followed by hurdles of logs and faded old tyres. The final section of the course was a simple down-hill sprint to the finish line. Most of the recruits ended up sliding down, because the grass had been worn away and the mud made staying upright too difficult for the exhausted troops to manage.
"I can't feel my legs," Bartholomew complained after their sixth day of running the course. "And my heels have blisters. In fact, even my blisters have blisters."
"I swallowed a mouthful of bog," Tickle added. "I think I should go to the hospital wing and have my stomach pumped."
"You must be pretty fit, Steve," Tiberius spoke up. "You never seem winded after the course. And you manage to give Willy a boost up the wall without breaking your spine."
"I guess I am," Steve agreed. He and his new friends, plastered head to toe in mud, trudged their way across the drill field to the shower block. Behind them, the rest of the recruits limped in a strewn-out line. "In fact, I don't mind the course all that much… or I wouldn't, if it wasn't for all the mud."
"My boots are flooded," Tickle continued. "We're going to have to spend the whole night washing clothes and scrubbing boots."
"Speak for yourself," said Bartholomew. "I have a pass for the town, and I intend to spend my evening in the company of several fine ladies."
"Good luck finding fine ladies in a village so close to a barracks," scoffed Tiberius.
"How on Earth did you get a pass?" Tickle asked. He pushed his glasses further up his nose; the mud on his face made them slide down again. "I've been after a pass since our first day!"
"My father is friends with Field Marshal Montgomery-Massingberd. Retired now, of course, but he still owes my father a few favours."
Steve made a mental note to check Falsworth's book to see how high the rank of Field Marshal was.
"So, you didn't even have to bribe for it?" Tickle continued.
"Of course not!" Bartholomew sounded scandalised by the mere suggestion.
"Don't suppose your old chum Messing-pants could come up with another pass in the next couple of hours?"
"Sorry, no. But even if he could, Pirbright cricket club is very exclusive; I doubt they'd let you in." He pulled up his sleeve and wiped the mud from his watch-face. "I'd better hurry on to the shower, otherwise I might miss the band's first song." He jogged on, apparently cured of his blisters.
"You'll never get your uniform cleaned up in time for morning drill!" Tiberius called after him.
Bartholomew waved over his shoulder as he ran. "I've got it covered. I'm paying Willy to launder my clothes and polish my boots."
And with that, he disappeared around the side of the barracks on the path that led to the shower block.
"Does anyone else get the impression he lives in a different world to the rest of us?" Steve asked. He couldn't imagine paying somebody to do his laundry. He hadn't even been comfortable with the hotel's washer women doing it, back in Palermo. Mom had been making him do his own laundry since he was eight years old. Steven Grant Rogers, you have two arms and two hands and eight fingers and two thumbs, and all of them in working order. When you lose fingers or a hand or an arm, then you can beg off doing laundry.
That had been Mom all over. She cared for him, but she never babied him, and she expected him to pull his weight—meagre as it had been—around the house. Just because he was small didn't mean he wasn't capable.
"His family's old money," Tiberius explained. "Old money people aren't like you and me. They're not even like new money people."
"What's the difference between old money and new money?"
"Well, to be new money, you actually need to have money. Otherwise you're just poor. Whereas old money people can be both rich and poor."
Steve scratched his head, belatedly remembering how muddy his fingers were. Ah well, he'd be showering it all off, soon. "I don't get it. How can you be rich and poor?"
"Well, old money people don't necessarily need to have a lot of money. But they have land and titles, and a lot of them have big debts. And yet somehow, they can still live like kings. "
"If having debt is a precursor to being old money," said Tickle, attempting to wipe some off some of the mud smeared on the lenses of his glasses, "then my family are probably old money, too."
"What do your folks do, Tickle?" Steve asked him.
"Dad works in the coal mines. An old mining injury kept him from serving. Mum works in munitions, now. A lot of women do. My sister's going to be joining her next month, when she turns eighteen."
"My father's a doctor," said Tiberius. "He's trying to work on a cure for mustard gas poisoning."
Steve nodded. Mustard gas. The very thing that had killed his own father. So far, the Nazis had avoided using chemical weapons on the battlefield. Maybe they didn't have any, or maybe they feared to let the genie out of the bottle.
"I hope he succeeds," Steve said.
"Me too. He says he dreams of a day when soldiers won't have to carry a gas mask into battle."
"If you ask me, the only way to see that dream become a reality is to destroy all the gas in the world," said Tickle. "Can you imagine trying to do that? Excuse me, Mr. Churchill, but I don't suppose there's any chance of you destroying your supply of poisonous chemicals? Hah!"
"I wonder what the world would be like, if there was no war." There was a look both far-away and introspective in Tiberius' eyes; he didn't even notice when he squelched through a particularly muddy patch. "Do you think that'll ever happen? That one day, there'll be no war?"
"It's a nice dream," said Tickle. "But people have been waging war since the first human picked up a stick and realised he could hurt the guy next to him with it."
"I'd take a stick over mustard gas, any day. What do you think, Steve? Think we'll ever reach a place where there'll be no more wars?"
"I sure hope so." But he didn't believe it would happen. Like Tickles said, men had been waging war since the dawn of time, and they'd probably be waging it until the end of time, too. The players changed, the battlefields changed, and the weapons changed. But war? War was the same play on a different stage, and no matter how badly it ended, the audience always called out for an encore.
: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :
Steve was terrible at poker. Bucky had told him so a thousand times, and now the guys in the barracks were telling him, too.
"You scratch your head every time you try to bluff," Tickle pointed out.
"No, it's the way your eyes go shifty, like you're looking for a way out. Gives you away every time," said Tiberius.
"Plus, you frown," Willy added. He'd finally finished washing his own uniform, and Bartholomew's, and had joined the guys for a round of cards. "Your forehead goes all wrinkly. You're a terrible bluffer."
"This is why I never lie," Steve agreed. "People always know when I'm not telling the truth."
"Maybe you should play a different game," Willy suggested. "What about dice? It's hard to lie, rolling dice."
"I think I'll just turn in with a book. I don't wanna ruin your game."
"You're not ruining our game," Tiberius assured him. He drew heavily on his cigarette and sent a puff of smoke blowing across the pot. "I can't remember the last time I won so many hands."
"Alright, I'm definitely retiring with a book."
The guys laughed as Steve folded and returned to his creaky, lumpy bed. From his duffel bag, he pulled out the first book his fingers touched. It was an ASE copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. A smile teased its way across his lips. When he'd been younger, Mom had often likened him and Bucky to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, especially since they had a habit of getting themselves into boyhood troubles—sometimes dragging Bucky's sister, Mary-Ann, into trouble with them.
"Don't suppose you've got any more cigs you'd fancy sharing?" Tickle asked Tiberius, as they resumed their game.
"Sorry. This is my last one."
"I ran out yesterday," Tickle said, a gloomy expression on his spectacled face.
Steve glanced over to his duffel bag, where the two packs of smokes Bucky had given him were still sequestered away. It hadn't taken him long to figure out why Bucky had given him the cigarettes, but in truth, there wasn't much he needed to barter for. Even as a kid, he'd lived lean. When he'd packed to come to Europe, he'd put his whole life into a standard issue GI duffel bag and a backpack. Everything he needed, he had with him, and the only things he wanted were not items to be traded for smokes.
He stared at the words on the page, not really seeing them. His thoughts strayed to the past, to other friends, some of whom he hadn't seen in years. He'd heard that Tyler and Johnny Delaney had been shipped out to the Pacific, while Mitch Gray was flying B-52s somewhere in Europe. Davey Tarbuck, like Steve, was barred due to health reasons; his high blood pressure and diabetes were a big red mark on his medical profile.
The poker game disbanded after Tiberius won his third game in a row, and the players returned to their beds, to talk and relax before lights out. They weren't the sort of conversations Steve would've heard back home. No speculation about where the Nazis would strike next, no banter about how those Krauts were gonna get close enough to strike a blow; they knew where the Nazis would strike next, and the Krauts had already struck dozens of blows against England. For these men, the war wasn't across the other side of the world; it was around the corner.
"I've heard medical supplies on the front are running low," said Tickle. "That sometimes they have to rip up the tents into strips to use them for bandages."
"Things aren't that bad," Steve said, before the hyperbole could spiral out of control.
"You've been to the front, Steve?"
"I thought you were just a show performer?" Tiberius added.
"I was. But I was performing pretty close to the front."
"Did you see any action?" asked Tickle.
A loud snort from across the barracks was Briscoe tuning in to the conversation. He sat up in his bed and scoffed again. "Of course he didn't see any action. Probably sat cowering in his bed every time he heard a shot fired. If he was even close enough to the front to hear shots being fired."
"I saw enough," Steve shot back. "While I was there, I saw a small group of injured soldiers get ferried to the hospital, and nobody was cutting tents into strips for bandages. And a couple of days after that, a bunch of POW soldiers were rescued, and I was right in the thick of it when they came back to camp. I may not have been fighting on the front line"—more like on the other side of it—"but I saw enough to have a good idea of what it's like out there."
"And what is it like?" Tickle prompted.
Silence reigned as Steve considered his next words. Nobody was playing cards, now. Nobody was reading a book, or writing a letter home. They were all entirely focused on Steve. Sure, they'd been living for years in the shadow of war, but now they were about to step out of the shadows and into the cold light of day. They knew the propaganda campaigns couldn't be entirely honest, but here was somebody who could tell them the truth. Not the truth that the bright posters told them, or that their drill sergeants told him; the real, honest-to-God truth.
"It's hard," he admitted. "Everything moves slowly. Sometimes you can be sitting around for days just waiting for orders. But when they come, nothing's slow. It all happens lightning-fast, sometimes so fast that you don't even know what's going on around you. The food's pretty bad, and supplies are tight, but that's why you gotta rely on your brothers-in-arms. You gotta look out for each other, and help each other. Because out there, the only thing you really have, is each other."
His words seemed to sit heavy on the recruits; they asked no more questions. Steve went back to not-reading his book, and just before he knew lights-out would be called, he grabbed his backpack and took one of the packets of smokes out. Tickle had the next bed over, and when Steve sat down on the edge, it creaked beneath his weight.
"Here," he said, offering the packet. "I think you need these more than I do."
Tickle hesitated. "I don't really have anything to barter."
"I'm not looking for barter. I just don't like seeing a friend in need."
That drew a smile from the young man, and he accepted the packet. "Thanks, Steve, I really appreciate this." He stared down at the packet, his gaze thoughtful. "I don't know how I'm going to get on at the front, with stuff like smokes rationed out."
"Funny thing about being out there. You do what you gotta do to survive. Something tells me you're gonna be fine."
"Thanks. Say, you ever considered going for officer training after this? I bet you'd make a great Captain."
Steve laughed. "Believe it or not, I'm happy being a plain ol' Private. I just want a chance to do some good, and I'm not sure I'm cut out for giving orders."
"Lights out!" one of the drill sergeants called. Steve hurried back to his bed, and the room was plunged into darkness. He felt his way beneath his blankets, and lay staring up at the bare ceiling. Captain Rogers. It sounded a little too much like Captain America for his liking. No, he'd had enough of being a Captain for one lifetime. From now on he was going to be just like everybody else here. He was going to be a soldier.
: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :
The table was cold, the metal biting his skin through the fabric of his shirt. Shadows danced around the ceiling above him, mocking him with their freedom. In the background, German opera wailed, and a cruel face smiled down at him.
"You're doing very well, Sergeant Barnes. So well, in fact, that I'm going to let you go. All you have to do is tell me who I should put in your place. Tell me which of your cellmates should replace you, and you are a free man."
Faces swam before him; Dernier and Jones, Falsworth, Dugan and Morita… he could put one of them in his place. He could escape the constant pain, the daily torture, the deprivation…
"Well?" Zola prompted. "Have you chosen? Or have you changed your mind? Shall we continue with our experiments?"
"No!" He couldn't bear it. Not another day of being stabbed with needles, of having his blood boil in his veins, or the nausea-inducing headaches that invariably followed. "Please, no. I've made up my mind. Take Morita. Use him. Not me."
"Very well."
Zola sent one guard to fetch Morita, and the other to help Bucky get dressed in his uniform. He heard Morita's screams as the man was dragged down the corridor, and he hurried with his dressing. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to see Morita put on the table. He didn't want to be seen by the man he'd condemned to torture.
But Zola made him wait. Morita was dragged in, cursing Zola, cursing Bucky. He was wrestled onto the table and restrained, just has Bucky had been restrained. Bucky kept his gaze down, on the floor, avoiding the other man's eyes.
"A wise choice," Zola chuckled. "He's got spirit. Oh, you can go now. But if I catch you again, I'm going to put you back on the table."
Bucky ran out the door. He ran down the corridor, past the factory floor, and out the front gates. He expected at any moment to feel the bullets of the guards in the towers hit him in the back. He not only expected it, he wanted it. He deserved it. But they didn't shoot. They let him go, they gave him his freedom, and he ran on into the night, tears streaming down his cheeks…
Bang bang bang.
Bucky's eyes flew open, and at the same time, his stomach heaved. He made it to the small en-suite bathroom just as the contents of last night's meal rose up his throat.
Bang bang bang.
He ignored the banging on the bedroom door until he'd finished being sick. Until he'd rinsed his mouth out with water from the sink, and scrubbed the tears from his cheeks. Then, on shaky legs, his stomach still convulsing, he made his way to the door.
At the last moment, he realised he was completely naked, and grabbed the fluffy hotel dressing gown from his wardrobe, wrapping it around himself before pulling open the door of the room. Falsworth was standing there, and at the sight of Bucky, his eyes widened.
"My God, man, you look terrible."
"Drank too much last night," Bucky croaked. It wasn't a lie. He'd downed half a bottle of Scotch—not one as nice as the bottle he and the rest of the 107th had found in a supply drop in Italy, but nice enough—and played drinking games with Dugan and Morita. For a little man, Morita could sure hold his liquor.
"So did Dugan, but he doesn't look like he was dragged backwards through hell." Falsworth squinted at him. "I don't think I've ever seen somebody's eyes look so bloodshot before. Do you want to see a doctor?"
Bucky shook his head.
"Alright. I'm sorry if I woke you, but I just wanted to ask whether you'd like to come and get something to eat."
His stomach complained at the idea, but he knew food was what he needed. Preferably something hot, and dripping with grease. Maybe more of those fish and chips. "Sure, I could go for breakfast."
"Breakfast?" Falsworth tried to stifle the smile sliding across his face. "It's lunch time. I would've woken you earlier, but Dugan seemed to think you'd need the rest."
"Oh." How the hell had it got to lunch time? It felt like he'd only been asleep for five minutes. "Yeah, lunch sounds good. Maybe I can make up for breakfast, too."
"That's the spirit!" Falsworth clapped him on his arm, and damn near knocked him over. "Sorry. Should've realised you'd still be a bit wobbly. Why don't you take a bit of time to recover yourself, then meet us down in the foyer in say, thirty minutes?"
"Sounds good."
When Falsworth left, Bucky sank down onto the bed and ran his hands through his sweat-damped hair. Every night, his dreams were the same. He was back on that table in Krausberg. Zola offered him release if he would put somebody else in his place. And every night, the dreams—the nightmares—ended the same way. Whether it was Morita or Jones, Dugan, Falsworth or Dernier, Bucky offered up one of his cellmates to take the torture in his place. The freedom that should've tasted so sweet was tainted by the knowledge he'd condemned another man—a friend—in his place.
Telling himself that they were only dreams didn't help in the slightest. The dreams were so real they felt more like premonitions, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he was ever captured again and tortured like that, he wouldn't hesitate to put another man in his place. Once, he'd thought he was strong enough to stand any hardship; now, he knew the truth. He was weak. A cracked mirror. Zola had broken him in more ways than one.
As he fastened his shirt, his hands shook, fingers jerking over the buttons. The shakes had started a few days ago, and they came on without warning. It wasn't too bad when he was alone in his room, because he could get into bed, curl into a ball, and wait for his body to warm up. But out there, it was different. Sometimes he couldn't hold a drink without it slopping all over his hand. Other times his legs might go weak, causing him to stagger.
He got around it by drinking a lot. Nobody looked twice at a drunk who spilled his drink or staggered as he walked. The drink also helped with the nightmares, a little. When he drank a lot, he fell into a deep slumber that the nightmares weren't always able to penetrate. Only problem was, it was taking more and more alcohol to reach the pleasant haze, and more to reach the protective embrace of deep sleep. He'd switched from beer to whisky a few days ago, and his body was already becoming alarmingly good at processing cheap Scotch. His hands continued to shake after he dressed, and that too was worrying. At first, the shaking had lasted just a few seconds; now it lasted a few minutes, and the intervals between shakes were growing shorter.
Bucky stepped into the small en suite bathroom and splashed some water from the sink onto his face. After drying off, he dared to look into the mirror. He avoided it as much as possible, because he didn't like the man who looked back at him. The man with dark shadows beneath his eyes and skin that looked pale and clammy. The man who inflicted pain on his friends to save himself.
Shellshock, he told his reflection. That's all this is. You're in shock from all you've been through. All the friends you've lost. You just need time. And better Scotch.
He ignored the doubt wriggling in his stomach like a nest of vipers, just as he ignored the small voice in the back of his mind that told him Bucky Barnes was gone, and the person looking back at him was Subject 36.
The shakes finally subsided enough to allow him to lace up his boots, grab his jacket and head down to the hotel lobby. Maybe today he could find a better Scotch; one that would not only put him into a sleep so deep the nightmares couldn't find him, but one that would silence that small voice once and for all.
Author's note: Happy New Year, everyone! Yes, I completely forgot to publish a chapter last Sunday. I had a busy weekend and lost track of time—I think it was Tuesday before I realised I hadn't updated. My Christmas break was spent playing a lot of Rimworld and watching a lot of Once Upon A Time, so I didn't get as much writing done as I'd initially planned. I did, however, manage to get a chapter finished, and I'm now working on Chapter 90. I have some exciting ideas for chapters 90-93ish, and I expect to get those written relatively fast-ish. A lot of my previously free time is taken up by dog, especially Sundays, when we go to an off-leash dog park ~40 mins away from home to meet up with groups of other beagles for a couple of hours of play. So, that's basically where I'm at with the story!