Chapter 3: The Taste of Smoke and Salt

North Atlantic, Aboard the USS Mount Vernon - November 21st 1943

The ship groaned like a living thing, its steel bones protesting the endless heave of black water. Peter Parker lay awake in his bunk, wedged between Gargoyle's mud-caked boots and the low, steady murmur of Preacher's nighttime Psalms. The air below deck was thick with sweat, mildew, and the sour tang of fear—a smell that clung to the 107th like a second uniform.

There was a rule—strict, absolute, unbreakable: no one above deck after dark. No lights. No lanterns. No matches. Especially not cigarettes. The U-boats were out there, hungry and patient, their periscopes carving lines through the black water. One flicker of flame could be the difference between silence and sinking.

"A cigarette's a goddamn lighthouse to U-boats, you morons!" O'Malley had barked.

But no rule could undo addiction.

Peter's eyes snapped open. Something was wrong. Not a sound, but an absence—the low, tuneless whistle Lucky always hummed before lights-out was missing.

He slid from his bunk, boots in hand, and picked his way through the maze of sleeping men. Vert clutched his harmonica like a rosary, his freckled face twitching in uneasy sleep. Rembrandt's sketchbook had slipped from his fingers, a half-drawn pin-up girl—curves echoing a young Marilyn Monroe—staring blankly at the ceiling.

The hatch creaked as Peter pushed it open just enough to let in a sliver of the icy December air.

Then he saw it—a flicker of orange in the dark.

Lucky leaned against the rail, his face lit by the ember of a Lucky Strike. The wind tore at his jacket, revealing the glint of a silver Zippo in his shaking hand. To Danny – Stay Lucky – Sis.

"You trying to get us torpedoed?!" Peter hissed, ducking low.

Lucky exhaled smoke through chattering teeth. "Needed one, Doc. Just one." His grin was a ghost of itself. "Two days without a drag. Feels like my goddamn veins are crawling."

Peter grabbed his arm. "Get below. Now."

"Or what? You'll narc to Sarge?" Lucky's laugh turned into a cough. "Still got that Winston stick up your ass, huh? Smooth and Mild."

The words stung. Peter's grip tightened. "I'm not scared. I'm smart."

"Same thing," Lucky sneered, taking another drag. The cherry glow reflected in his hollowed eyes. "You think the Krauts smoke Luckys or Winstons? They're out there right now, lining us up in their crosshairs—"

The hatch slammed open.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU MORONS DOING?!" Bucky's voice cut through the dark, raw with fury but clamped to a hiss.

Lucky flicked the cigarette overboard. "Relax, Buck. Just getting some air—"

CRACK.

The shot came from nowhere. A single, perfect report that shattered the night.

Lucky staggered. For one impossible second, Peter thought he was joking—that same smirk, those same narrowed eyes. Then the blood bloomed across his chest, black as the ocean below.

"MEDIC! DOC, NOW—!"

But Peter was already moving, gloved hands pressing into the wound as Lucky slumped against him. The deck tilted, or maybe it was the world—he wasn't sure.

"Hey…hey, Baby Boy…" Lucky's voice bubbled. He fumbled inside his jacket, producing a crumpled pack of Luckies and the Zippo. "Take…take 'em. Can't let Bucky…hog all the good stuff…"

"Shut up. Shut up. Pressure here—goddammit, where's the exit wound—?!"

Lucky's hand found Peter's cheek, leaving a smudge of blood. "Tell my sis…tell her I…"

His fingers went slack. The lighter clattered to the deck.

Somewhere, alarms blared. Men shouted. The ship lurched into evasive maneuvers.

But Peter didn't move. He sat there, Lucky's head cradled in his lap, watching the smoke from the discarded cigarette rise like a soul escaping.

They wrapped Lucky in a flag. No time for prayers. No time for tears.

Five other bundles lay beside him—men Peter didn't know but whose names he'd later carve into memory.

O'Malley's voice rasped over the wind as the squad gathered at the rail. "Private Daniel Greene. Killed by enemy action. He was…he was one of ours."

The words "Stay Lucky" glinted on the Zippo in Peter's pocket as they tipped the body overboard. The splash was smaller than he expected.

Gargoyle broke first. A single, choked sob. Then Vert's harmonica wailed—a discordant shriek that sounded too much like a scream.

Bucky stood rigid beside Peter, jaw clenched so tight his teeth groaned.

Peter didn't say anything. He stared at the pack of Luckies in his hand, the top cigarette stained with blood.

Somewhere in British Isles - November 26th 1943

The English rain fell in sheets, turning the airfield into a quagmire. The 107th hunched under their ponchos, their boots sinking into mud that smelled of wet earth and diesel. Peter didn't know where they were—just the first of many nameless patch of hell they would be stuck at.

His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"Here." Bucky shoved a mug of bitter coffee into his grip. "Drink."

"Not hungry."

"Didn't ask if you were."

Peter sipped. It tasted like ash. Like Luckies. Like failure.

Bucky lit a cigarette—Lucky Strike—and let it burn untouched between his fingers. "He knew the rules. Wasn't your fault."

Peter's laugh was hollow. "I'm the medic. Everything's my fault."

A scream cut through the rain. Across the tarmac, a crewman writhed on the ground, his leg bent at a sickening angle beneath a dropped supply crate.

Peter was moving before he knew it.

The bone jutted through the man's calf like a broken fencepost. Peter knelt in the mud, his mind eerily calm as he tore open a sulfa packet.

"Name?"

"C-Carlson, Doc—"

"First name."

"H-Henry."

Peter nodded, tying the tourniquet. "You've got a kid, Henry? Wife?"

"Girl…back in Ohio…"

"Picture?"

Henry fumbled a locket from his neck. Inside was a photo of a laughing woman holding a baby.

Peter slipped it into Henry's hand. "Hold onto that. Keep talking to me about her."

As he worked—setting the bone, stitching the gash—Peter realized his hands had stopped shaking.

At the Barracks - that night

The stuffed bear watched from Peter's foot locker as he lit his first Lucky Strike. The smoke clawed his throat, harsh and unforgiving.

Steve's Journal Entry:

Daniel "Lucky" Greene, 21, Brooklyn, NY. Dead. (I'm sorry.)

Henry Carlson, 22, Toledo, OH. Saved. (Today, I saved one.)

Bucky appeared in the doorway, holding two mugs of something that smelled suspiciously like stolen whiskey. "To dumbasses," he said, clinking his mug against Peter's.

They drank in silence.

Camp Blackthorn, England - December 25th, 1943

The days bled together in a haze of frozen mud and waiting. Christmas was a cold irrelevant affair.

Camp Blackthorn clung to the edge of the English countryside like a scar—rows of Nissen huts hunched under steel-gray skies, their corrugated roofs rattling in the ceaseless wind. Mornings began with the shrill scream of a whistle, followed by the clatter of tin mugs and the groan of men rolling from their cots. Peter woke each day to the same ritual: the hiss of the coal stove fighting a losing battle against the cold, the acrid smell of Gargoyle's instant coffee bubbling over a stolen hot plate, and the low mutter of Preacher reciting Psalms as he polished his boots.

They trained.

Not the frantic, sweat-soaked drills of boot camp, but something slower, deadlier. Days blurred into weeks of minefield simulations where the ground clicked underfoot, of crawling through icy mud while live rounds snapped overhead, of Peter practicing triage in the rain with blood bags strapped to screaming dummies. The medics called it "the second forging"—where soldiers were tempered into something that could survive the front.

At night, they waited.

The mess hall became their sanctuary, its walls stained with the ghosts of a thousand cigarettes. They played endless hands of poker with ration cards as currency, Vert's harmonica wheezing out off-key jazz under the flicker of bare bulbs. Paintjob sketched on napkins—portraits of pin-up girls with Betty Grable legs and Rita Hayworth smiles, which Gargoyle taped to the wall beside a growing tally of days since their arrival: 147.

Lucky's bunk remained untouched. His footlocker gathered dust, the stuffed bear Peter had won him at the Stark Expo still perched atop it, one button eye dangling by a thread.

Camp Blackthorn, England - January 12th, 1944

The new man arrived during a sleet storm that iced the camp into silence.

Peter noticed him first—a compact figure in a too-clean uniform standing at attention in O'Malley's office, his dark eyes tracking the squad through the grimy window. When O'Malley shoved him into the barracks later, the room went still.

"Morita, James," O'Malley barked, as if announcing a criminal. "Your new scout. Try not to get him killed before June."

Morita stood rigid, his face a mask. At thirty-five, he was a decade older than most of them, his black hair streaked with gray at the temples. A jagged scar ran from his left eyebrow to his jawline, pulling his mouth into a permanent half-sneer.

Gargoyle broke the silence, sizing him up with a glare that had made recruits piss themselves. "Ain't you a little old for this, pops?"

"Ain't you a little ugly to be talking, kid?" Morita shot back, his voice flat as a shovel blade.

A beat. Then Bucky's laugh cracked the tension like a gunshot. "Oh, I like him." He slung an arm around Morita's shoulders, ignoring the man's stiff posture. "C'mon, Jim. Let's get you a real cup of coffee before Gargoyle scares you off."

The squad thawed in increments.

Bucky made it his mission to drag Morita into their orbit—stealing extra rations "for the old-timer," "forgetting" to mention his age during drills, and loudly declaring his Bronze Star from Italy (earned for single-handedly taking out a Nazi machine gun nest) at every opportunity. By the third week, even Vert had stopped "accidentally" spilling soup near Morita's boots.

But it was the night of January 17th that sealed his place.

The squad huddled around the stove, passing a bottle of contraband gin, when Morita finally spoke unprompted. "You wanna know why I'm here?" He pulled a creased photo from his wallet—a family frozen in happier times, their faces pressed against barbed wire at Minidoka. "My wife. Kids. Parents. All in a camp in Idaho because we look like the enemy." He tossed back a swig of gin, his voice hardening. "So I fight. Prove we're Americans. Even if it kills me."

The room fell silent. Preacher crossed himself. Gargoyle grunted, "Fuckin' politicians," and passed the bottle back.

Peter caught Morita's eye and nodded. No words needed.

Camp Blackthorn, England - March 10th, 1944

Winter loosened its grip reluctantly.

The frost retreated into puddles that reflected the pale English sun. The training fields became a quagmire, sucking at boots and tank treads alike. The 107th adapted—learning to strip and reassemble rifles caked in mud, to read minefields disguised as spring meadows, to patch wounds while hip-deep in frigid water.

Morita proved his worth daily. He could outshoot Paintjob at 300 yards, his hands steady as a surgeon's. He cursed in Japanese with such creativity that even O'Malley raised an eyebrow. And he smoked Chesterfields, which Bucky declared "a goddamn travesty" before sliding him a pack of Luckies.

"Why these?" Morita asked one evening, examining the red circle logo.

Bucky lit one for himself, the flame reflecting in his blue eyes. "For a friend."

Peter found Morita alone later, cleaning his rifle with methodical precision outside their hut. The sunset painted the sky in hues of bruise and blood.

"You don't have to try so hard," Peter said, offering a Lucky Strike.

Morita took it, his calloused fingers brushing Peter's. "Not trying. Just staying alive." He exhaled smoke toward the horizon. "Heard about your friend. The one I replaced."

"Lucky."

"Yeah." Morita studied the glowing ember. "My unit in Italy… lost a guy like that. Always joking, even when the shells were falling. Died saving a kid from Naples." He flicked ash into the mud. "You don't forget men like that."

Peter's throat tightened. "No. You don't."

They stood in silence as dusk deepened. Somewhere in the distance, a nightingale sang—a fragile sound against the weight of what was coming.

The mess hall - June 4th, 1944

The mess hall hummed with a tension thicker than the blackout curtains.

Every soldier in the camp packed into the room, their breath fogging the air. Peter sat wedged between Bucky and Morita, their knees knocking under the table. O'Malley slouched beside them, whittling a piece of wood into a shape that might've been a bullet or a crucifix.

A major with a face like crumpled parchment took the stage. The map behind him showed France, its coast circled in red. "At 0600, two days from now," he began, pointer tapping Normandy, "Allied forces will commence Operation Overlord. The 107th lands here—Omaha Beach."

A collective inhale. Omaha. The name alone conjured whispers of drowned tanks and machine guns nested in cliffs.

Bucky leaned close to Peter, his whisper barely audible over the rustling crowd. "Heard the Krauts got 88s pointed right at the landing craft. Like shooting ducks in a barrel."

Morita grunted, folding and refolding a ration card. "Better than sitting here rotting."

O'Malley's knife stilled. "Stow it," he growled, but his eyes stayed fixed on the major.

The briefing dragged on—tides, timetables, codenames. Peter's leg jittered uncontrollably. He gripped the Zippo in his pocket, Stay Lucky biting into his palm.

When the major left, O'Malley stood. For once, he didn't shout. "Listen up. You're gonna hit that beach, and it's gonna look like hell itself opened up. But you keep moving. You freeze, you die. You panic, you die. You move, and you take those goddamn cliffs." He met each man's eyes. "And when your buddy goes down, you drag him with you. Because we don't leave our own."

The silence that followed was heavier than any prayer.

Outside, engines roared to life. The first trucks rumbled toward the docks.

Bucky nudged Peter, his smirk strained. "Ready to be a hero, Baby Boy?"

Peter lit a Lucky Strike, the flame steady despite his shaking hands. "Just ready to end this."

Morita stood, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. "Let's go make history."

As they filed out, Peter glanced back. O'Malley remained at the table, his whittling now unmistakably a coffin the size of a matchstick.