This story takes place in the late movie era, between "The Final Frontier" and "The Undiscovered Country", and I imagine Doctor Christine Chapel as having rejoined the crew at that point.
Prepare for both heartache and hijinks, whatever is to be expected when people find themselves out of their usual surroundings, not to say, their usual time. The rating, of course, is due to it being set in wartime, but I do not glorify the violence, it is sometimes, but not always, a part of the new reality our Starfleet officers find themselves in and they have to deal with. Along the road, we'll meet new characters they will bond with, new places, and not quite new civilisations. There'll be good days and bad, lighter chapters, and darker ones, as we discover if and how they manage to come back home unscathed.
Hope you enjoy!
Jim Kirk awoke to a damp and earthy smell, finding himself in what could only be described as a fortified hole in the ground. Around him, Spock, Doctor McCoy, Chekov, and Doctor Chapel were opening their eyes as well, seeming bewildered to find themselves in this environment. Their cramped surroundings were sparsely furnished, including a handful of shabby bunk beds, a table with some tools, and a small collection of rifles. He didn't know where they were and didn't remember how they got here. The last thing he did remember was the library—a highly sophisticated, abandoned library—that they had found on a hitherto unexplored planet. He, Spock, Chapel, McCoy, and Chekov had been investigating, and now they were here, clad in strange clothes, uniforms but not their Starfleet uniforms.
McCoy trudged to the opening of the makeshift shelter and half walked, half crawled through the opening.
"Looks like the bloody First World War out there," he grumbled as he poked out his head, then scrambled back into the dugout.
Each of them took a turn to look outside, each seeing the same glum thing: a fortified path dug through the earth, about two metres wide and two and a half metres deep—a trench. From further away, they could hear explosions.
When Spock returned last, he nodded. "This is the First World War," he said, and the khaki-coloured cap he was wearing brushed against the curved ceiling as he moved, although he was standing at the room's highest point.
"Great," McCoy grumbled. "What do we do now?"
Kirk shrugged. "Play along. Survive. Try not to change history."
"Wait a moment, you think this is real?"
Chekov smirked bitterly and mumbled, "Only with our kind of experiences would you assume this wasn't."
McCoy grunted displeased and nodded.
"I've no idea, Bones," Jim admitted. "But what if it is, and we change the course of history?"
"I would advise action per the Prime Directive," Spock added. "As far as still possible."
"As far as still possible?" Christine Chapel asked.
Spock nodded. "Our mere presence is contamination. And we might find ourselves in situations where doing nothing entails more consequences than taking action."
His look met Kirk's, and the Captain nodded. "And seeing as this is the First World War, I'd guess there's little chance we can stay out of the action. As I said, let's play along."
"Great!" grumbled McCoy again. He sounded angry, but his friends knew it was a cover-up for fear.
Then something else occurred to Christine. "If memory serves, women didn't fight during those wars yet," she said.
Jim stepped in front of her and looked her up and down. "Hm, yes, we'll have to do our best to disguise you."
"The hair would be a beginning," she mumbled, trying to tuck away her dark brown waves under the uniform cap.
"I believe I have a solution," Spock said slowly. From the small table, he picked up one of the tools. A pair of scissors.
Christine sighed, then took off the cap. "Well, have at it. Do your worst."
"I will endeavour not to," Spock said. "Can you hold up the hair at the top of your skull so that I can shorten the sides and back first?"
"It's an idiom, Spock," she sighed as she held the hair out of his way and exchanged an amused look with Kirk. "It means that even if you do everything as bad as you possibly can, I'm not worried about what you may do."
"Ah." Spock raised an eyebrow and began to snip away. "With those expectations, I should manage."
He continued cutting her hair, and strand after strand fell away under his focused work and Jim and Leonard's watchful eyes. Pavel was standing at the exit of the dugout, on the lookout for visitors.
Spock left the hair on top slightly longer, with an average length of five centimetres, and managed to achieve a more or less smooth transition to the considerably shorter hairs on the sides and in the back.
"I have left the hairs next to your ears longer to emulate sideburns," he said as he was finished. "Your appearance should be close to the average male of this era now."
"Thanks, Spock," she mumbled with a little sigh, brushing some strands of hair from her shoulders.
"I've got something else for you, Chris," Leonard called from another end of the room and tossed a gauze bandage at her.
"A bandage?" She looked between the roll of fabric and Leonard. "Oh, right. Well, turn around, gentlemen."
"A gauze bandage to bind down breasts. Good thinking, Doctor," Spock said as they turned around.
"I had a hunch these uniforms don't come with a bra," McCoy mumbled, completely glossing over the fact that the Vulcan had just paid him a compliment. "And for concealment purposes, binding down seemed logical." He looked up at Spock. "That's more than we can do for you."
"I will have to rely on helmets and caps," Spock said, pursing his lips.
"I don't know," Jim burst out, laughing. "I bet Bones can find another use for those scissors."
Spock shot him a scandalised look, but before he could say anything, Christine told them that they could turn back around.
"Well, that's the best we can do, I think," she said as she buttoned up the jacket. "Let's hope we get out of here quickly. I already don't feel like myself anymore."
McCoy nodded. "Well, maybe it'll work, then. Now, be careful it isn't too tight, and don't bind too long, because of the blood flow."
"Someone's coming!" Pavel whispered hurriedly from his lookout position, then joined them in the middle of the room, trying to look inconspicuous.
The light from the entrance was momentarily blocked as a figure stepped down into the room.
"Corporal." The figure saluted Jim.
He was a slender man of maybe thirty, roughly McCoy's height, with piercing blue eyes that regarded them suspiciously.
"I do not believe we've met before," he said, with a noticeable accent. "I'm Lance Corporal Franklin A. Jones."
Jim nodded. "James T. Kirk," he said, trying to project some sense of authority, considering this man had just saluted him.
Jones nodded stiffly and looked at Spock. "And you?"
Spock noticed they had the same number of stripes on their upper arms and assumed he was also a lance corporal. "Spock," he said.
"What'd you say? Jack?"
"Eh, yes," Spock quickly agreed. "Jack…Grayson." At least his mother's maiden name seemed to meet no suspicion. He chastised himself for not having thought about the issue with their names earlier.
Just like Jim, McCoy was less troubled and said, "Leonard H. McCoy." He was also carrying the one stripe of a lance corporal on each arm.
"You, Privates?" Jones said, nodding over at Pavel and Christine.
"Chapel," Christine said.
"Both?" Jones asked.
Christine decides to answer in the affirmative, seeing how making up a new name on the spot had worked for Spock. "Yes," she said. "I'm Chris. Christopher. His name's Paul."
"Paul A. Chapel," Pavel said, quickly playing along, and Christine hoped he would keep silent about the A standing for 'Andreievitch'.
"Come with me, Private," Jones said, pointing at Christine. "The Lieutenant is waiting for his servant."
He turned around to leave, and Christine followed, waving a quick goodbye to her friends.
When the two had gone, McCoy turned to the others. "Leftenant?" he asked, emulating the Lance Corporal's pronunciation.
"Lieutenant," Jim Kirk said, pronouncing it like they normally would.
Spock raised an eyebrow. "We are, apparently, British."
"British?" McCoy exclaimed. "For Christ's sake." He frowned and shook his head, more at the unfamiliar pronunciation than the revelation that they were in the Royal Army. "Well, our accents don't seem to raise suspicion."
"Indeed," Spock said. "Peculiar, considering our accents are noticeably not British."
"Well, as long as it is to our advantage," Jim said and shrugged. "Let's wait for Doctor Chapel to come back, maybe she can supply us with more info."
Christine Chapel wore a grim expression when she came back minutes later. "All right, we're in trouble," she said, slumping down on the only chair in the small dwelling.
"What happened?" asked Leonard.
"Has our identity been revealed?" asked Spock.
"Oh no. No new problems," she said, with a small mirthless smirk. "Just the First World War. You were right, Spock. And believe me, I'd really like you to be wrong."
Jim kneeled in front of her. "The Lieutenant is our commanding officer, right? Did you find out anything helpful?"
"I think I did, Captain." She straightened up in the chair as she recalled the information. "It's the 24th of April 1916, roughly a year before the United States of America join, and we're on the western front in France. I don't have any specifics on our location, but I found out more about our ranks and duties here."
Kirk nodded for her to continue, and she took a deep breath.
"We're part of a platoon of forty-eight men, commanded by Lieutenant Edwin Thompson and his platoon sergeant, Clark Merriweather. You're a corporal, Captain. And you're also the commanding officer of our section, which consists of twelve men." Kirk nodded again, and she turned to the others. "You're both lance corporals," she said, pointing at Spock and Leonard. "You're a private, Pavel, same as me. And I'm assigned as soldier-servant to the platoon's lieutenant."
McCoy furrowed his brow. "And do you know what kind of division we're in? Infantry?"
Christine shrugged. "Sure."
"Sure?" Leonard blinked a couple of times, trying to get his head around all of this new information. "How can you be so sure?"
"See any horses?" Christine asked and smirked. "I doubt we're in the cavalry."
"Horses? Poor things." McCoy shook his head and frowned again.
Christine went on to tell them what she had seen, briefly explaining the general layout of the trench system they had found themselves in.
They were in a dugout in a trench that branched off from a so-called communication trench. This communication trench connected the front line with the first support line in a zig-zag pattern, with smaller trenches branching off from the main communication trench. This labyrinthine system spread further north and south along the disputed area between territories, and back into the home territory via additional communication trenches, supposedly towards trenches for close reserve or additional support trenches. Christine had not had a chance to investigate in detail, but as far as she had been able to see, closest to this dugout were a couple of machine-gun nests and a bunker used as a command centre and for protection and storage space. And further back, in the support trench, she had seen a first aid station and a kitchen. She hadn't seen any other dugouts with beds in the vicinity though and guessed there were simply not enough sleeping arrangements for forty-eight people, seeing as there were only eight beds in this dugout.
At this point, Jim quickly interrupted her narration to tell them that sleep had been a rare commodity at the front, with sleep deprivation wearing away at the soldiers' health. They would try to get an hour of sleep or so at night and try to get additional sleep during the day. Deeper dugouts with beds were seldom, and the soldiers would try to sleep wherever they could, including in little hollows dug into the trench wall or wherever they were in the trenches themselves.
Christine nodded, having seen such hollows and several smaller bolt holes in the front-line trench.
"I remember," Pavel Chekov said. "They dug small holes to quickly duck out of danger."
"Duck out of danger?" McCoy asked. "Danger by what?"
"The artillery barrages of the enemy," Spock said grimly. "Cannons, howitzers, mortars, and the like, if I remember correctly."
"Knowing you, you probably do," McCoy answered glumly.
Jim sighed deeply. "Well, gentlemen, it won't do to sit around and mope, let's go outside and make ourselves familiar with our surroundings and our fellow soldiers."
They scrambled out of the dugout one after the other and, after some embarrassing minutes of disorientation, joined the other soldiers in their daily activities. The trench system seemed like a small village that, albeit nothing short of claustrophobic, seemed to cling to every bit of normalcy that one could get. There were soldiers everywhere, cooking, cleaning their rifles, changing socks, eating, drinking tea, reading, and more or less quietly pursuing all those hobbies that were realistically possible when living half underground. For being at war it seemed quite peaceful, but they all suspected that this could change at a moment's notice, especially when nightfall came and the movement of troops and supplies could be carried out under the cloak of darkness. Right now, at noon, nothing seemed to indicate impending danger but the rifles, the trenches themselves, the lookouts stationed in the front-line trench, and the underlying tension in every conversation.
As they got to know some of the platoon's soldiers, it became clear that the number of beds could not match the number of people even if there were more accommodations nearby like the one they had found themselves in. Alone the section under Kirk's command encompassed more people than could fit in that one dugout. One of them they had already met, Lance Corporal Franklin Archibald Jones, a serious but not unkind fellow who introduced them to the rest of the section over a cup of tea while they sat squeezed together on the floor of the trench by the kitchen.
Additionally to the five of them and Jones, the section was made up of only privates. There was Elliot Baker, a shy boy with a round and freckled face, who, not true to his name, was better kept away from any kitchen appliance; William Ryder, a friendly young man almost as tall as Spock who liked to write poetry; the somewhat serious Henry Forester whose main goal seemed to consist in mocking William for his poetry; Angus Hutchinson, a blacksmith's son from Yorkshire who was even grumblier than McCoy but had a gentle soul; Thomas Cooper, a footman from the same village as Angus, and a heavy smoker whose laid-back demeanour made him appear as if he didn't have a care in the world, not for the war, not for himself, and certainly not for others. And then there was Eli Jones, a sunny-faced boy who wouldn't shut up when he introduced himself. They suspected he was a brother of Lance Corporal Jones. Their behaviour seemed juxtaposed, but they had the same piercing blue eyes and hideously good looks.
"Goddammit, that was the longest introduction I have ever heard," McCoy muttered when Eli had finished, evoking a chuckle from anyone who could hear him, including Eli himself.
They sat with the young men until they slowly dispersed in the late afternoon to pursue their individual duties.
"Are you always this relaxed, Corporal?" Franklin Jones asked before he left, the last to do so.
Jim Kirk shrugged. "I try to be." He cleared his throat and smiled up at Jones. "Doesn't mean I won't expect you to put your best foot forward."
"Naturally," Jones answered stiffly. "It's only, our old corporal, he used to shout at us. He was a good soldier but not a good leader."
"Your old corporal?" McCoy asked. "What happened to him?"
Jones jerked his head in the direction of the front. "Your guess is as good as mine. Swallowed up by No Man's Land one way or the other."
After he had left, Spock nodded. "If my recollection is correct, one could literally be swallowed up between the lines. The mud and the constantly changing geography due to persistent bombing made recovery of casualties difficult. Often, soldiers were gravely injured and took days to die, metres away from their comrades but out of reach behind the barbed wire."
Pavel Chekov frowned. "Are you saying that is going to happen to us, Mr Spock? We are going to die out there?"
Spock calmly shook his head. "No. I am saying that is what we are all trying to avoid."
"Nice pep talk, Spock, really nice," McCoy grumbled. "In a pig's eye."
The Vulcan's eyebrows vanished under his helmet. "I am not sure I deserve your ill temper, Doctor."
"Oh, you know you do."
Christine slapped her thigh in annoyance. "If you two think your petty arguing is more important than getting along and surviving, you can take it over there." She pointed down the trench, in the direction of the ominous No Man's Land.
"We are not arguing," Spock said.
"It's not petty," Leonard said at the same time.
They abruptly turned their heads and looked at each other, then at Jim.
He shrugged. "She's right, you know?" He threw them a warning look not to take their bickering any further, then turned to Chekov. "But Spock is right, too. As we can't say for sure that this isn't real, we're trying to avoid finding out the hard way. And the dangers will be extreme and manifold. A millisecond might mean life or death. But just as life is not certain anymore, neither is death. So far, we've done a pretty good job at surviving and cheating death at every turn. Why not this time?"
Pavel smirked and nodded. "Aye, Captain."
About half an hour later, the illusion of calm they had so far experienced was dispelled with a bang. Several literal bangs to be exact. Their first bombardment.
Leonard McCoy cursed as they hurried to the nearest dugout. They could hear the whistling of projectiles and explosions varying in distance, and just when he ducked into the hole in the trench wall, the ground shook and chunks of earth dropped on his helmet. He huddled against the back wall of the dugout as Spock, Jim, Christine, and Pavel followed.
Seconds after squeezing into this hole, they were joined by who, going by Christine's descriptions and his rank insignia, must be Lieutenant Thompson.
"That was a close one," he mumbled as he slipped in. "Almost took out our lookouts." He squeezed himself in next to Jim, which was, due to the lack of space, directly next to the entrance. "Well, we'll have to wait it out, boys." And he stroked his moustache once and leant back against the earthen wall with a sigh. There was no new ceremony of introduction, and they assumed he had been made aware of them by Jones or someone else.
Maybe there was something else to it, though. They had noticed that the names they had given Jones matched the information on the identity tags that they were wearing. Each of them was wearing a green eight-sided tag on a cord around their neck, and a red round one was hanging from the green one by an individual cord, with the information on both tags identical. And it was also identical to the information they had given Jones earlier without ever having paid attention to the tags. This only added to the mystery, but it appeared that their questions had to remain unanswered for now.
"Do you have a razor or scissors with you, Chapel?" Lieutenant Thompson asked casually after a while. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the bangs from outside although they were all sitting close together.
"No, sir." From between Jim and Pavel, Christine shook her head.
"Pity, I think my moustache needs a trim. That would have been something to pass the time." He glanced at the hair protruding from her helmet. "Do you cut your hair yourself, lad?"
She shook her head again. "Don't worry, sir," she said and chuckled, having interpreted his look correctly. "This was Jack." She pointed at Spock.
Thompson looked at him and smirked. "I hope you're not a barber by trade, Grayson," he said.
"I am not," Spock said gravely, then added, with a slight tilt of his head, "as I think I have sufficiently proven."
Thompson chuckled again and turned his attention back to the exit.
The minutes stretched until Spock spoke again.
"This type of attack is a most unusual approach," he said, indicating the ongoing artillery attack.
Thompson turned his head sharply. "Where have you been?" he burst out. "They're not trying to hit us. At least that's not the main goal. They're trying to destroy our equipment, cut off supply lines, and scare us. Ever heard of psychological warfare?"
"Yes, sir," Spock answered calmly.
Thompson stared back at him for a few seconds, meeting his steady gaze. Then, he shrugged. "Well, it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on you."
Spock shook his head. "Not that I have noticed, no."
"Good." Thompson nodded. "We need men like you."
It was true that Spock seemed remarkably calm. It was not so much remarkable if you knew him, but for an outsider, it was astounding how he could seem so unfazed by the constant thunder of explosions outside. By comparison, even the Lieutenant himself seemed more afraid. And the others were no better off. Jim did his best to hide his concern, but he was biting his lip. So was Christine, and she was staring outside as if watching the few metres between the exit and the opposite trench wall was any help. Pavel's lips were a thin line, and McCoy was tapping his fingers on his knees.
"Quite a primitive solution," Spock said after a while. "The entrenchment. But at least marginally effective as long as one is not buried alive." He raised his eyebrow as he turned to Jim. "We are witness to an early balance of powers where neither side was able to make considerable advances. The losses, of course, were great."
Next to him, McCoy huffed indignantly. "Stop telling me how I might die!" he grumbled. "I'm gonna drop dead just thinking about it."
"My telling you will neither lower nor increase the chances of your demise," Spock said innocently. "I am merely stating facts."
"Are you always like that?" Thompson asked. He had watched their bickering and was smirking again. "Are you always 'stating facts'?"
Spock nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Sadly, yes," McCoy added.
"Well, carry on," Thompson said and shook his head as he smirked at the two of them. It seemed he had grasped their dynamic quite well already. "Just don't talk too much about the ways we might die here to the rest of the boys, especially not to Merriweather. You'll lower the morale of the whole battalion."
Christine had mentioned their platoon sergeant before, and Private William Ryder had told them, in a thoughtful tone, that Clark Merriweather was a man who cared perhaps too much, and he had seemed a little more affected with every bullet fired, every command given. Angus Hutchinson had added that he believed the Sergeant was ill and that Thompson would do better to send him on leave or home before something happened.
As the artillery barrage went on, they waited together with Thompson, who struck them as a man who had the will but not the power to send one of his men home.
"Oh, does anyone here have any medical experience?" he asked after looking out into the trench.
Christine and Leonard raised their hands.
Thompson pointed at McCoy. "Stay behind during the next attacks, we're short on medics and the reinforcements can't get through. I need someone with steady hands."
When the bombardment ended an hour later, dusk had fallen, and they were hurried to the front-line trench. McCoy followed them and waited in the back and watched as first the order was given to stand to, and everyone stepped on the fire step that enabled the men to look over the rim of the trench. Their bayonets fixed, their rifles at the ready, the whole battalion seemed to be prepared for battle. As he looked along the zigzagging trench in each direction, he soon lost sight of the soldiers, of course, but here and there over the surface, something that could be the blade of a bayonet glinted in the light of the setting sun.
Before long, the Germans attacked. The alarm sounded, and on the signal, there they all went, over the top. Jim, Spock, Christine, Pavel, the men from their section, and all the other men that he couldn't remember the names of scaled the front-facing wall, the parapet, and vanished over the sandbags into No Man's Land. Seconds later, the rapid explosions of gunfire filled the air.
Leonard McCoy hurried back into the communication trench towards the support trench, and once there, sat down on the ground by the first aid station. He shuddered to even call it that, nothing more than just another small dugout that it was, with some bandages, analgesics, and rum, as far as he had been able to see, only good for sending people back into battle or on towards the home territory via the long Royal Army Medical Corps chain of evacuation, over regimental aid posts, casualty clearing stations, field hospitals and the like. He knew comparatively little about the system but supposed he should be glad that they even had as much this far ahead, as he suspected that the circumstances were often worse with medical aid applied only much further back.
From afar, the racket of gunshots reached his ears. And he imagined he could even hear the screams of pain. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as if he could block the sounds of battle out, could stop thinking about the waste of life, of men—of boys—used as cannon fodder. And he remembered Christine's face, scared but determined as she followed Jim into battle as if she wasn't meant to be a healer, not a fighter.
After a while, the sound of explosions died down, and he could definitely hear the screams now.
Then, the injured came in. The ones that could be helped that was. Pavel was helping another young private with a pale face limp along, Jim was breathing hard and was wiping a bloody lip as he tugged Franklin Jones along whose nose was bleeding. Christine looked rattled, hanging onto the arm of Private Elliot Baker. And Spock looked as if he was just coming back from a Sunday stroll, earning a bemused look from Thompson.
The Lieutenant himself was clutching his arm, the sleeve of which was soaked in red. Before he could answer any questions, a skinny, dishevelled-looking man McCoy hadn't met before came rushing in towards them.
"Are you all right, Edwin?" he burst out.
Thompson scoffed. "Christ, get a grip on yourself, Clark," he told the Sergeant. "I've only been grazed."
Clark Merriweather nodded but stayed, waiting next to Thompson, his hand tight around his rifle.
"You're gonna be fine," McCoy said after bandaging him up sufficiently.
Thompson stood up and nodded. "I had no doubt, Doctor, thank you." He looked over to where Christine had just taken a swig of rum prescribed by a medic and smirked. "With the constant mothering of Chapel here, there won't even be a scar left."
Startled, Christine stared back at him, not knowing how to take this remark. Did it mean her disguise was already up?
But Thompson only chuckled at her shocked expression. "Calm down, Private. You might be effeminate, but you do your job well. Just keep your hands to yourself when not ordered otherwise, and we won't have a problem." And he left with Clark Merriweather in tow, leaving the five of them to themselves again.
Christine frowned. "What did he mean? Did he think…?"
"Yep," McCoy said. "He probably thinks you're homosexual."
"Be careful," Spock added, raising his eyebrow in an expression of honest concern. "In this period, people could find themselves shot for whom they loved."
Christine burrowed her face in her hands. "Oh no," she groaned. "The past was the worst."
They left the first aid station, but before they could even think about what to do next, the whistling of projectiles and the sound of explosions filled the air again.
They dove into the nearest dugout, which thankfully turned out the be the bunker, condemned to sit out yet another bombardment.
Christine sat down on a crate in the furthest corner of the dugout, trying to calm down her breathing. Her heart was beating in her throat, and she found herself trembling slightly.
"You okay, Chris?" Leonard put a hand on her shoulder.
She shook her head. "I don't know what's happening," she mumbled.
Leonard was already examining her as well as he could without his equipment.
"It's as if you've been injected with a high dosage of epinephrine," he said.
Jim frowned. "As if someone was trying to revive you." He exchanged a look with Spock and Chekov next to him.
The Vulcan nodded. "It is a possibility."
"What is?" McCoy asked, slightly irritated to be left out of speculation concerning his patient.
Jim narrowed his eyes and leaned forward on his crate as he addressed both doctors. "What if, hypothetically speaking, this is an illusion of some kind, and we're on the Enterprise in sickbay, and they're trying to get us out of it?"
"Meaning, we're unconscious, and this is all in our heads." McCoy nodded as he considered this. "Possible."
Christine scoffed. "What if, hypothetically speaking," she grumbled through gritted teeth, "we are here, and I'm having an adrenaline surge because of, I don't know, the bloody First World War?" She drew a shuddering breath as she noticed she was raising her voice.
"Hey, relax." Jim took her by the shoulders and smiled reassuringly. "That's also possible. We can't be sure. But we better not assume this isn't real. It could be our undoing."
She sighed deeply and nodded, trying to shake off the anxiety. She looked down into her lap at her hands and noticed an unfamiliar tremor pass through them. "All my years of working around horrendous injuries, my hands never shook," she murmured sadly. "Now they do."
"You were saving lives, then," Spock said calmly. "Not taking them."
Christine made a noise that sounded like a little sob. "I didn't shoot anybody," she said and threw Spock a shocked glance. "I think I didn't." She frowned, and the horrible reality dawned on her. "I don't know. Oh God, I don't know."
Four other soldiers rushed in before Spock could even try to say something reassuring. Franklin Jones, Thomas Cooper, Angus Hutchinson, and Eli Jones.
"Oi, Chris. You all right?" the younger Jones asked.
She nodded quickly. "I'm fine."
"I know just the thing to cheer you up," Eli said, completely disregarding her answer. "Let me tell you about our childhood." He pointed at Franklin who rolled his eyes but nodded encouragingly, nonetheless. "That'll cheer everyone up."
It turned out that Franklin Archibald Jones and Eli Jones were indeed brothers. And while Franklin was often more withdrawn and serious, his affection for his younger brother was all too obvious.
Before Eli could start, Angus Hutchinson scoffed. "As if that'll keep them from killing us," he grumbled and pointed outside, in the direction of the explosions. "Them Germans have fairy tales that'll give you the creeps."
"Oh, loosen up, Angus," Thomas Cooper burst out and clapped him on the shoulder. "Why not enjoy a story if we can't keep them from killing us anyway?"
Angus glared at him but leant back to listen to what, knowing Eli, was probably something he had heard before.
"So, when Franklin was born," Eli began, "he was the first and only son in the family. I came ten years later. And because our parents had dumped almost all the letters of the alphabet on him, they had none left for me. Not even for a middle name. And you know what the daft fool does? Insists on not being called by his middle name, Archibald. And no one does. No one but me, that is. Why should all the good letters be wasted on him? So, if you want to annoy him, call him Archie."
"It just sounds so unsophisticated," Franklin protested. "Archie sounds like a little child, a toddler. Now, Franklin sounds like a man, an inventor, for example."
Next to Jones, Spock nodded. "It does not only sound like an inventor," he said, ignoring McCoy rolling his eyes, "Franklin was an inventor. Benjamin Franklin."
"Right you are, sir," Eli said, pointing at his older brother. "Franklin is an inventor. Archie is my older brother."
"You're insufferable," grumbled the older Jones but smirked back at his brother. Then, in an obvious attempt to prevent Eli from talking more, he addressed Christine. "What about you, Christopher?" he asked, "How do you manage, being the responsible, older brother? You're older than Paul, right?"
"Uhm, yes, I am. He's eight years younger." It took her a moment to remember that Pavel was masquerading as her brother, and she stammered, "Oh, I manage," deciding that a vague answer was better than a hastily made-up childhood story. "He's a bit quirky sometimes but isn't any trouble to me."
Next to her, Pavel nodded diligently.
"No wonder," Angus grumbled, his dark eyes regarding her thoughtfully. "You have enough trouble as it is, I bet he wouldn't want to make your life any harder."
For a moment, Christine thought it had been a joke, but no one laughed. Not even Thomas Cooper or Eli Jones.
Jim Kirk cleared his throat. "What do you mean by that, Private?"
"Well, sir, I mean that Chapel was probably teased by other kids because of obvious reasons. His own brother being a nuisance would have been even worse." He looked around at the others, but no one came to his rescue.
"Obvious reasons?" Kirk asked. He had a hunch, but it was better to dispel the rumours now if their disguise was to stay successful.
Angus blushed. "Well, yes, sir. What I mean by that is that, frankly, Chapel looks like a woman. Sounds like one, too." He quickly glanced at Christine. "I don't mean any disrespect, Chris. But that's how it is." He looked at the others again and exclaimed, "Oh, come on, we've all been thinking it!"
"I don't know," Thomas Cooper spoke up and grinned at Christine. "He looks and sounds a bit like my cousin Eric."
"Your cousin Eric is a boy of fourteen! Of course, he doesn't yet have a deep voice and beard." Angus jabbed his finger at Christine. "But you're a grown man, and there's not a hint of stubble on your face, only some soft little hairs here and there."
"Never needed a razor in my life," Christine said, trying to sound nonchalant, and shrugged.
She had noticed that Angus seemed mostly flustered and not intent on being impertinent. And even though this was another moment where she had feared her disguise was up, she couldn't help but see the humour in the situation. Essentially, Angus's instinct was right, even if crudely formulated due to the limited worldview of this time.
"I bet!" the young man exclaimed, sounding genuinely jealous now. "But why? Why can't you grow a beard? And why is your voice so high?"
Christine opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again and threw an imploring look at her shipmates.
Luckily, Spock came to her rescue. "Quite simply put, his development was disrupted after he lost a little bit of certain parts in a little accident he had as a child," he said and let the implications sink in.
"It wasn't so little," Christine mumbled.
McCoy smirked at her. "Don't get self-conscious about something you don't have."
The others were silent and stared back at him, then at Chris. Jim seemed on the verge of bursting into laughter, and so did Pavel. Outside, the bombardment went on. But it seemed Spock had been unwittingly successful in distracting the soldiers from the looming peril.
It was Thomas Cooper who broke the silence, with his usual cheekiness. "So if I kick you between the legs," he asked, ignoring Lance Corporal Jones's admonishing glare, "it won't hurt?"
"Not as much as it's gonna hurt you when I kick back," Christine responded, evoking a hearty chuckle from Thomas.
"You're all right," he said and gestured at the five of them. "You're a strange bunch, but you're all right."
"And you seem to have no issues expressing your opinion," Jim Kirk mumbled but matched Cooper's teasing tone.
"Well, with all due respect, Corporal," the young man went on, his light brown eyes twinkling mischievously, "I have not. At least not as long as we're all sitting in the same dirty hole in the ground."
"Strange?" Chekov exclaimed, "I am not strange."
Cooper grinned. "Paul Chapel, you're just as strange as your friends. You want everyone to like you and get along with you, but the only people you associate with are your direct superiors." He gestured at Kirk. "You must agree, that's a bit weird. One might think you were trying to ingratiate yourself."
"I am not!" Pavel protested.
"Then spend more time with people of your own rank, Paulie. People like me."
"You? Do you think you are a good influence?"
This was just the reaction Thomas Cooper had wanted, and he laughed. "Oh, not at all. Does that scare you?"
Pavel shook his head violently. "I am not scared," he said and glared back at Cooper with feigned annoyance.
"Good," Thomas said and grinned back.
And when the bombardment ended, the two of them went off together, half bickering, half laughing together.
At that point, it was very late at night, and all of them were quietly thankful that there was no time for elaborate night-time duties, such as patrols into No Man's Land, digging new trenches or whatever might befall them, for fear of soldiers being caught in daylight before finishing. Of course, this also meant that this night, they would not get any new supplies, but for the moment, relief and exhaustion took over.
Angus Hutchinson and Eli and Franklin Jones had vanished in another direction, and the other four quickly went to the dugout with beds, before they were all taken, to catch a few hours of sleep if they were lucky.
When Pavel Chekov joined them there, the night was almost over, and they felt they were lucky if they got just one hour of sleep.
"How was your time with Cooper?" Jim asked as Chekov slumped down in the bunk next to his.
"Horrible," Pavel said and yawned. But it was obvious he was not genuinely disappointed. "He gave me whisky,"
Jim smirked. "Other men would kill for a bit of alcohol right now."
"Other men would report you for that," Spock added.
Pavel smirked up at him, barely visible in the low light of the single lamp. "Oh, Mr Spock," he said innocently. "I am only doing my duty as a Starfleet officer."
Propped up on one elbow, Spock looked back down at him and raised an eyebrow.
One bed below, Jim unknowingly mirrored Spock's gesture. "Let's hear it, Pavel."
"Well, I was following the directive to establish relationships with the locals and gather information," he said without missing a beat.
"Indeed," Spock said. "Well?"
"Ye, sir?"
"Your report, Commander Chekov," Spock said dryly.
"Well, as we know, Private Thomas Cooper was working as a footman on an estate in Yorkshire before joining the army. And he intends to return there once the war ends. He said the head housemaid is his sweetheart, you see?"
Spock sighed. "Yes, I see."
Pavel continued. "Her name is Rose, she has red hair, and Thomas says she has the nicest—"
"That is quite enough, Mr Chekov," Spock said and leant back on his bed.
"His sweetheart," Doctor McCoy murmured from across the dugout. "He's got a girlfriend. So he does care about someone."
Chris Chapel chuckled. "Let's hope for Rose he does."
"I do not think Mr Cooper cares as little as he pretends," Spock said slowly. "I believe his nonchalant behaviour is merely a coping mechanism."
"Is that so?" Jim shared a grin with Bones, something Spock couldn't see from atop the bunk bed. He continued in a sarcastic tone. "And that is your logical insight telling you that? How fascinating."
"I am basing my hypothesis on my experience with humans," the Vulcan answered earnestly. "Do you think it is incorrect?"
"Oh no," Jim murmured, and he and McCoy burst into laughter.
Spock turned on his side to raise an eyebrow at the Doctor over the rim of the bed. "I fail to see the humour in this situation."
From below him, Jim chuckled one last time and said, "Spock, we know it's a coping mechanism. Everyone knows."
"Everyone but perhaps Thomas Cooper himself," Pavel added.
McCoy smiled over at Spock. "And you said it as if you'd just had the revelation of the century."
"Ah, I see," Spock said curtly and turned back around, the straw underneath rustling as he did so.
Soon enough, other people came in to sleep, Franklin Jones, Angus Hutchinson, and some lance corporal they didn't know the name of, and they stopped talking.
The same questions were on all the Starfleet officers' minds as they tried to fall asleep in this hole in the ground. Was this reality, and they had travelled in time, or was it an elaborate illusion? If it was an illusion, how would they escape? If this was the First World War, how would they get back to their own time? Would they get back? Would their life from here on out be spent between battles and bombardments? Who would die, and who would live?
The soldiers they had met today had seemed too real to be a mere illusion and they found themselves unwittingly affected by the thought of one of them dying. The camaraderie was contagious, necessitated and boosted by the claustrophobic circumstances. And they were all so young. Jim realised with a pang that most were younger even than David had been when he had been killed. Young and vulnerable, protected only by some layers of wool and a helmet.