Army Dreamers

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Apparently they were sure she would be a boy, so sure that when Jacqueline came out, she was nameless for a week.

"The cord's wrapped around her neck. Oh, Mary, Mother of God. She's been strangled, the poor wee thing."

"Not breathing? Let me see her."

The little heart. A helpless little heart beating wildly. Stopped suddenly like a bird dropped from the sky. A single shot. "Oh, she's gone. Dead before she had a chance to live. I'm awful, awful sorry. She'll be a little cherub in heaven now, for sure."

Any baby who came into the world in this family knew the iron tang of tears before they ever knew the taste of mother's milk. A Scully's blood was banded with madness, like the deep striations of winter. Because they were all madmen, everyone knew that; every one of them swaggering and wild-eyed and savage as wolverines.

All the same, came from whispers in the village. They all go bad.

And just this once, a mother desperately wants to be proven wrong. The first star shone beyond the glass-panelled window. Sylvie took a deep breath and silently offered a prayer to the heavens. She does not wait for an answer. God is always silent. And she will not shirk her responsibility. She does not blame God. Nor does she believe, like some, that this is divine retribution. This is not God's doing. This is not God's work. It is hers.

Sometimes there is no space, so one has to make a space, to carve it out in order to keep alive. And it is the same rule with life.

If there is no space for you, then you must create it.

A cry. Rageful, selfish, mad. Jacqueline decides, if she is to scream, let it be in battle. There is no chance for peace except at the point of a sword. As a woman she can't get much else, even those feelings open her up to judgment, so she will wear the anger she is afforded like sparkling armor. She will flaunt it like a birthright.

Jacqueline Scully. A woman born out of time. Not a soldier yet. Could not even conceive of taking a life–she had merely begun to have one. Life, like war, can also be unpredictable.

So, for her redemption, God gives her a chance.

A hundred years from now, the sound of her name will still make men shake, though her own people will look upon her tenderly, with pride. Before each battle, the foot soldiers, artillerymen, and sappers will bend their heads and call her name.

They will say, Lady Liberty Of War, give me strength and courage, and she shall hear them, wherever she is.

Must she never die.