A Golden Opportunity

For The Mere Price of a Bullet

"I first saw John Watson when our companies joined in France, in the push towards Paris and the liberation from German occupation. There were some two hundred of US soldiers moving through the woods, tasked not with barraging against the front lines or destroying tanks...we weren't so glamorous. Instead we had French interpreters, and we were seeking to find Nazi spies and lower ranking officers in the villages, the smaller ones that never made the news. We were lightly armed of course, so as not to appear threatening, and we did good work. We walked more than anything else, and in those long walks it left a lot of time for thinking. Yes of course, we'd think of the Nazis, we'd think of our place in the world, in the war. We'd think of the shrubs and of the trees, the ditches and the tall grass, anything in the landscape that could be hiding a man with a gun, a man whose scope was just leveling on our heads..." Professor Holmes paused, flicking his own temple as if to emphasize how quickly a bullet could be met with brain. "Though we saw little combat. The Germans who were hiding in the villages often knew they were defeated, and they were in small numbers, more like bands of rebels who misused their power, the rapists, the thieves, the torturers. They committed heinous acts, though they were cowards. They squealed like dogs."
"I was a common foot solider, hardly trained but a pretty good shot. I had played football in school, so I was athletic, I was tactical, I was enthusiastic. I oftentimes led the marches along those French roadways, I walked faster than the rest, I could endure. And yet as time wore on, and as the company around me seemed that it would only ever be the male sex, I could hardly fail to notice the difference between myself and my fellow soldiers. We had similar backgrounds, we were All American boys growing up in small towns or farms, shooting at cans with a bb gun rather than at a man with a rifle. Though in reminiscing about our best days, in remembering what we had left behind...they all spoke of women. They spoke of their sweethearts back home, they carried their pictures in their hats or grips or wallets. They kissed those photos, swore to return, wrote letters home, cried in their sleep...dreamed loudly. Where I differed was I had no one back home, I was just as lonely then as I am now, nor did I have the dream of returning to a girl I was sweet on. I differed in that I liked where I was. I differed in that the shrubs and ditches interested me for the first couple of miles, but beyond that I became more occupied with my fellow soldiers. With their walks, with their bodies. With their sweat, with their shirts sticking to their skin. I was more interested in studying the swagger of the man in front of me, or listening to the breath of the one beside, than bothering to scout ahead with the swiveling heads we were supposed to keep at all times. I was supposed to be acting like I was in a warzone, and indeed I was, though it felt more like...like I was in some broken fantasy. Like I was surrounded by these creatures I never would have understood had I not lived with them for months, had I not walked with them for days. Surrounded by something incredible, something I had never quite understood the value of until I saw only them. Until it felt as if I never left the football locker room, as if the cheerleaders had vanished from the field, as if it was just me, my teammates, the other team...men. Only men. Something I had never dared to imagine before, and something I had never dared to like. Something I never wanted until I knew it was possible. On those mile walks some men found themselves, but I found others. My want for others. So simple it was, when a heart was not confused. So simple it was when it felt as though men were the only creatures in the world. So simple it was to confess to myself what I was truly searching for, and why I had never succeeded in finding a sweetheart back home. Why I had never wanted to, anyhow."
"When I first saw John I recognized nothing truly spectacular about him. No man was truly beautiful in war, no man seemed more attractive than anyone else. We were unwashed, untrimmed but for the rusting knives we used for razors, dressed in mud and in sweat, hair slammed under a helmet and face painted with camouflage. He was a medic, that was all I knew, and in that moment I had not truly felt for him. He was just another man, another member of the group I was at that point immensely interested in. I admired them as a group, not as individuals, one soldier to me was as good as the next. I knew any one of them would do in satisfying my desires, though I also understood how ridiculous that idea truly was. It would get me in trouble, get me kicked from service, or worse it could get me shot or abandoned. I wouldn't tolerate punishment, nor did I go looking for it. I stayed quiet, reserved, observant. I stayed as a proper soldier should, and indeed there was something satisfying in the idea of waiting. There was a way to romanticize longing, and to sexualize the mere presence of two hundred men milling around, unaware they had an admirer. I was content, and I felt that contentment would be enough to take me through the war. Not that, in that instant, I ever wanted it to end."
"When I was shot, the first bullet that was fired came ripping through my right hip. Either the shooter was an amateur, aiming for my chest or head, or he was trying to use my sudden injury as a warning to the rest of the company. Either way, one moment I was standing on the riverbank, watching my fellow soldiers wading across to the other side, and the next I was in the worst pain of my life. This part, I believe, you already know. John Watson flung himself on top of me, in an effort to shield the rest of my body and in an attempt to heal the wound that was bleeding viciously into the rocky sand. He braved gun fire to be at my side, and straddled me as he pushed his hand onto my hip, squeezing my wound shut, pushing and pushing upon me...I was already painless when he injected the morphine, in fact I felt more pleasure than pain throughout the entire experience. In my mind the rest of the world had fallen away, and this medic had become my own personal angel. I could see him from that angle, I could see him from below, I could feel his entire body weight upon my knees and feel his hands ripping through my trousers, it was like a dream, it was better than a dream. All at the cost of a bullet!"
"It was John Watson who escorted me to the medic tent, some thirty miles away. He felt obligated to me, he said as much to our commanding officer when he refused to leave my side. Many men were injured through the gunfire, some even died, and yet John Watson rode in the back of my truck, holding my stretcher still as it bumped up and down on the uneven roads. I knew I was attracted to him before the hospital tent, though with the reintroduction of women I was all the more positive that my heart had changed permanently. The nurses did not phase my new belief; they did not charm me as they did the fellow soldiers, those who grabbed at their chests, those who whistled in awe. No, I had my love, I had my John. It was he who sewed me up, being as though the surgeons were more occupied then with a more viscous battle on the front lines, that which left men without limbs, without eyes, without skulls. The surgeons were reattaching, they were sawing, and they were cauterizing. John Watson sat at my side, watching as the nurses changed my bandages, swapping soiled bloody linens with fresh every ten minutes in an effort to prevent infection. I could not walk, yet still I could not feel. Morphine and love are an effective remedy against even the worst of pains. It was John Watson who finally decided enough was enough. He was done waiting, and by then I had lost so much blood I could hardly see straight. They could not force any more liquids down my throat, nor were they confident I was getting enough nutrients to maintain the levels at which I was losing them. He figured he ought to take matters into his own hands, even if they weren't the most steady."
"He returned to my side with a white apron on, a white mask, his helmet gone and his blonde hair visible for the first time. He looked as much of an angel as I could ever had hoped for, and even as he dug tweezers into the bullet hole, a leather belt caught between my teeth to keep from biting off my own tongue in agony...even then I felt love for him. The pain was remarkable, at that point it was undeniable, though whereas more rational men would have turned their eyes aside I instead could not stop staring at him. If seeing my own flesh picked apart was just part of the show, I watched his careful hands, his determined posture, his fingers as they moved, his brow as it sweat, his eyes as they occasionally wandered. All afternoon he worked on digging the bullet fragments from my flesh, unsuccessful as we now know, and all night he worked on stitching the wound back together. By then he was exhausted, but he insisted a disturbed wound must be closed, lest the bleeding continue in a viscous cycle. And so he had pulled up a tall stool, perched upon it, and leaned his forearm on my pelvic bone for support. His elbow brushed my navel, his hand constantly brushing along the inside of my thigh...I watched him all the hours he worked. They propped my head up on a pillow when I no longer had the strength to hold it, though I knew that I would regret missing any moment of this extraordinary experience. He sewed with careful hands, though he was not so skillful. His stitches were oftentimes crooked, the thread was thick and course against my skin, occasionally he would stab too hard downwards, piercing muscle, drawing blood. He was a caring doctor, but he was not a surgeon, nor should he expect any career to unfold for him in that field."
"When my leg was shut he fell asleep at my side, and throughout the whole of my recovery process we got to know each other. We talked of our lives, of our dreams, of our experiences up to that point. In that tent we speculated if this war would ever end, what it would cost if we were on the losing side, what it would cost our families if we never came home. He often spoke of his own fear of dying, of leaving behind his young wife, of failing to achieve the life he had promised for her. He, who was healthy and strong, lamenting about his imminent death to a man who could hardly move without losing pints of blood. He was compassionate, caring, and most of all he was loyal. He cared not for the other men in the tent, nor did he wish to fraternize with the nurses who came to aid me daily. He was there for me, as if he also knew we were bonded by something more meaningful than the war. I had loved him through his bravery, through his touch, and through his healing. Now I was growing to love him for his heart, his soul, and his conversation. I was growing to love him so passionately it seemed to absorb my very life force, and in those days I could hardly imagine a life without him by my side. Well of course he was growing to love me, too. I could see in his eyes that he cherished me, I could hear in his laugh that he appreciated me, I could feel in his careful fingers that he wanted to preserve me, to save me not only for the world, but for himself. They say a woman always knows, though it seemed apparent to me then that love was not as discreet an emotion as men think it is. A woman always knows because she's reading the mind of a man, a remarkably easy thing to decipher. I knew, and he knew. It was not so difficult to deduce that we were in love by the end of those four days."
"Well, of course the time came where my recovery was coming to a stagnation. I didn't need intense medical supervision, I merely needed time to rest, and resting did not allow me the comfort of a high demand hospital bed. Injured soldiers were coming in daily, and in some cases they were forced to lay on the ground as they waited for the next doctor's attention. I wasn't a priority, and so I would have to leave. I would be put on a steamship headed back home, to recover in a hospital on US soil. What might have been a relief to some seemed more of a crushing blow than a man should ever have to endure. I would be losing my John, separated by the sea and by the war, and now I would be losing the paradise that had become of this war torn country. I was losing my soldiers, my surroundings, and my fixations. I was devastated, and he could see that too. He could see it, and he pitied it."
"The last night we spent together, John had pulled the curtains around the bed for privacy. He sat awake all night, pressing my wound under his palm with one hand and curling my fingers together with his in the other. I was in and out of sleep, the morphine constantly meddling with my natural rhythms, though never once did I wish to leave him, not even for the poor excuse of dreams. We spoke that night about our futures, about how we would always write to one another, how we would see each other again when the war ended. I remember weeping that night, begging for him to stay alive, begging for him to survive it. The sun was rising when he rose to his feet, I could see the first of its rays from under the flapping canvas of the tent. He had to go at first light, that we both knew, and that was when I told him. I told him that I loved him, simple as that, and with that light, airy tone one would use when finally the truth was spoken out loud, when finally their burden was lifted...he said it back. He said "I love you too, Sherlock". And then he kissed me. He leaned over, clutching my hand all the while, and pressed his lips to mine. Never had I known a feeling like that before, as if heaven and Earth had budged underneath me, as if the rug was pulled from under my feet, as if I was falling so quickly into a state of permanent bliss that I was incapacitated by the effort of it. I had never known so many nerves could fire, I had never known I could feel so much upon my own two lips. I could feel his love down to the embrace of his cells; I could feel his breath and taste all he had eaten in the past month. I could absorb him in that moment, for in that moment we were truly one. And then...then he pulled away. He left the photograph on my nightstand, with his address scrawled behind it...and he left. I was shipped to the United States, I recovered, I was freed...by that time the war had ended and in the freedom of my new home I penned the first letter. My love was obvious at that point, I had nothing to hide. I wrote to him, knowing I would never love anyone so fiercely as I loved him, and in those days he returned my letters. In those days he had me convinced that he would leave his wife, that he would respond and return, that he loved me just as fiercely. Well of course he had to...I had felt it in his lips; I had heard it in his words. If I had known that I would have not seen him for...for fifty six years...well I would have done nothing differently. I would have done the same, Victor. I would have waited this long while, if only I was promised another chance to meet him. To see him. To see if...if what we had was as true as it felt. Perhaps I am old now, old an unexperienced, a fool in love, as you say. But I was not then. A young heart is more receptive than an older one, it can detect much more strongly. Perhaps I was blind today, perhaps I was irrational, though I was acting with the same spirit he had left me with. I was in my young body again, I was in that hospital again...I had forgotten the years went by. As if fifty six years was a mere fifty six seconds, and his lips had just left mine for the first time."