Twenty-two wounded men were brought to the field hospital after the battle at the crossroads, and one dead one. Dukeman.
No matter how many times she was confronted with it, the sudden finality of death always sent Charlie reeling for a few seconds. Only a few hours earlier she'd been talking with him and Floyd in the CP and he'd offered her his bunk, which probably still had his stuff in it even now. And now he was gone. There one moment and gone the next, like the fog of warm breath in the cold.
The twenty-two wounded were in various states of distress. Some of them had been caught by the artillery and were in surgery for hours, others had been hit by shrapnel and only needed to be cleaned up. Autumn sat with Joe Liebgott for the better part of an hour, digging some shrapnel out of his neck and cleaning the wound. Charlie was tasked with bandaging David Webster and had to endure his seemingly endless monologue about how stupid what he'd said when he'd gotten hit was.
"They got me," he repeated his earlier words, over and over again like a broken record. He shook his head at himself. "Stupid."
Charlie just let him talk, only glancing up and humming every now and again to give the impression that she was listening. In reality, her mind was far away, wondering how many times for the rest of the war she'd have to look into a dead pair of eyes she'd seen alive not hours before.
Weeks passed leisurely slowly out on the line. As time wore on, all any of the men seemed to want to talk about was the upcoming evacuation of a company of British paratroopers and how much they hated the trenches they were spending their days in. Gradually, the daylight hours became shorter, the nights colder, and somehow everything seemed even more bleak. It started to rain a whole lot more and Charlie's ODs started to itch as they became caked with more and more mud. The once soft fabric was now hard and tight with blood and dirt and sweat and rainwater. Her hair was tangled and clumped with it, too.
At least, Charlie reminded herself, the longer they stayed on the line the longer she got to spend with Trigger. Floyd had pulled her aside in the days after they'd found him to remind her that he wouldn't be able to travel with them to wherever they went next and her heart had fallen to her stomach, because that was something she hadn't thought about. Now she counted every day that she got to spend with him as something to add to the ever reducing list of things to smile about; whenever she had the time she was in the CP with him, playing fetch or feeding him or else simply sitting with him and running her fingers through his fur. He was one of her favourite companions at the moment, offering all of the warmth and comfort of Floyd but none of the confusion, and none of the prying into her innermost thoughts, either.
But the mortar squad were good company these days, too. None of them ever wanted to discuss their upcoming military engagements any more than they had to, which Charlie appreciated, if not because she generally couldn't contribute anything to such conversations then because a heavy feeling of dread always settled low in her stomach when she thought about the next wave of casualties she'd have to see to and whether any of them would be someone she loved. But Malarkey, Skip, and Alex were not at all interested in talking about all that. No, they were much more inclined to discuss more intelligent matters.
"Anyone else feel like they're runnin' out of places to shit?"
"Alex," Charlie groaned, burying her face in Trigger's neck. While she appreciated that none of them censored their words around her, sometimes spending time with men was just a bit too gross to handle.
"What?"
"Nah, he's right," Malarkey said, chewing on a K-ration. "Can't walk for five seconds when you go into the trees without stepping in someone else's shit."
"That's disgusting," Charlie said, her voice muffled by Trigger's fur.
"Aw, come on, Lancaster, don't pretend you ain't shitting outside too."
"Malark!" Charlie exclaimed, sitting up just so she could glare at him.
"Charlie's a lady," commented Skip around a cigarette. "She doesn't shit."
"Thank you," Charlie said with another pointed look at Malarkey.
"You know what the worst thing is?" Alex went on as if no one had spoken.
"What?" Malarkey asked, all ears.
"When you walk all the way over there 'n then realise it's just a fart -"
"Alex!" Charlie exclaimed.
"Yeah, but you can't risk it," Skip agreed, shooting Charlie a grin around his cigarette. "That is one chance you will never catch me taking."
"You got that right," said Malarkey.
"You three are so vulgar," Charlie complained, shutting her eyes and shaking her head in her disgust. "Why am I even friends with you?"
Alex shrugged. "'Cause we decided you were just about interesting enough to recruit."
"Wow, thanks, Alex. I'm flattered."
"Anytime, Charlie, anytime."
"Hey, Lancaster," Malarkey said, the universal indication he was about to change the subject (mercifully). "What're you reading right now?"
"Yeah, what is it we'll be forced to listen to on our deathbeds?" Skip wondered drily.
Charlie shot him a look which was weakened by her fondness for him. "That's not funny," she said, and it wasn't, but the wink he gave her made her frown ease anyway. Still, thinking about him, or any of them, lying on a bed in the field hospital while she read to them in their final few hours the same way she'd done with Robert Van Klinken made her stomach drop. "None of the three of you are allowed to die, okay?" she said, meaning every word. "If I have to say goodbye to any of you my ghost will kill your ghost as soon as I follow after."
Malarkey snorted. "If you think your ghost is ending up anywhere near my ghost, you are sorely mistaken."
Charlie's jaw fell open, and then she laughed in disbelief. "You're going to ignore me in the afterlife?"
"I do my best to do it now," he said, grinning at her. "If I get there before you do I'll at least have a head start."
"That is so mean, Malark," Charlie told him with a tut. "For saying that, I don't think you'll get to be a ghost at all. Your soul is probably going straight to -"
"Charlie, Doctor Whitlock wants to see you."
Charlie's eyes fell shut once more, though this time in resignation instead of disgust. Doctor Whitlock was maybe Charlie's least favourite person on the planet and as of late he'd been doing his absolute best to force her to spend more time with him than was strictly necessary, likely just to torture her. She'd only come off of her shift about half an hour ago and here she was again, being called right back to the field hospital.
"Okay," Charlie said to Boo, nodding at her before turning back to the others. "Will you look after Trigger while I'm gone?"
"Sure thing," Malarkey agreed.
"He prefers us to you anyway," Skip drawled with a laugh.
Charlie scoffed. "In your dreams, maybe."
Doctor Whitlock, it turned out, just wanted to know where Charlie had put his surgical equipment after she'd assisted him in the last surgery. If he had bothered to put it away himself, she thought as she showed him where she'd stowed it safely, he would know, but instead he'd decided to leave all of the different instruments, still covered in blood, out on the side while he left the tent to go for a smoke.
Before she left the tent again, Charlie went to stand with Boo.
"What did he want this time?" Boo asked. They were both watching Mabs sleeping on the floor by one of the beds, her head leaning on her arms atop the mattress and the bandages she'd been reorganising scattered about the floor around her.
Charlie smiled to herself as she watched the rhythmic rise and fall of Mabs' shoulders as she breathed. The smile morphed into a scowl when she replied, "He wanted to know where I put his surgical equipment."
"Ah."
The pair of them shared a look then looked away as they both laughed, trying to cut the sound off early before they risked waking Mabs.
"You're lucky to have Remington," Charlie said with a silent sigh. "At least when he's there he's there, you know?"
"Yeah," Boo agreed. "But he's not there an awful lot."
Charlie nodded. While Whitlock seemed to always be around, and therefore always irritating, Remington did seem to have a miraculous habit of disappearing.
"Anyway," Charlie said around the makings of a yawn. "I should probably head back to the CP before Whitlock makes up another job for me."
Boo giggled. "If he catches you hanging around he might ask you to wipe his -"
"Oh my goodness!" Charlie exclaimed in exasperation. "Why is everyone talking to me about nasty things today?"
"Nasty things?" Boo echoed with a grin. "Do you mean -"
"Bye, Boo," Charlie said. She hurried out of the tent to the sound of Boo's laughter.
Charlie came upon the CP again just as some of First Platoon was returning from a patrol. Noticing she was waiting, Babe gave Charlie a smile and held the door open for her, letting her precede him in entering. When she turned to thank him afterwards her words were interrupted by a voice coming from her left.
"Who's that from, Tab? Dear John letter from back home?"
Charlie thanked Babe quickly but stayed lingering by the door, pretending to search for something in her med bag while she eavesdropped.
Floyd laughed. Upon a glance up, Charlie saw him give a shake of his head as he looked down at an unfolded letter covered in pretty calligraphy.
"It's from a girl, but it is definitely not a Dear John letter."
The men around him oohed and Smokey, sitting beside him, jostled his shoulder. "What kinda letter is it, Tab?" asked Smokey. "Of the romantic variety?"
Alton, across from Floyd and facing Charlie, though she was sure he hadn't yet seen her, scoffed. "The sexual variety, more like."
Floyd only laughed again.
"Aw, come on, Tab, who's the broad?" another man asked, and the taunting rose from there. All of them heckled him for answers before he finally yielded.
"It's from a girl I dated back in high school," he explained. "Samantha Ryers." Charlie glanced up from her bag again just in time to see him shake his head with a low whistle. "Had some good times with her back in the day."
Charlie had heard enough. Keeping her head down, she crossed the room and sat back down with Malarkey, Skip, and Alex, where they were still looking after Trigger for her.
"Aw, buddy," she cooed as Trigger nuzzled his face into her chest, "did your dad not come and say hi?"
"Who cares about his dad anyway?" Alex said with a laugh. "He likes his uncles better, don't you, buddy?"
Charlie was inclined to agree with that sentiment.
She didn't know why it had irked her so much to hear Floyd speak of the girl who wrote the letter. Probably she just didn't like hearing him talk about women that way, especially because he didn't think there were any women around to overhear him. Was he always so flippant when discussing the girls he'd been with, so careless with how he told his friends about them? Charlie would have hated to have been talked about like that, like someone he hadn't cared for at all and instead had only used when it had been convenient for him. So that must have been why it bothered her so much. She felt sorry for the girl he'd been discussing.
Distantly, Charlie wondered when it would stop fazing her to remember what Floyd was like when she wasn't around. She'd known he was a womaniser when they'd first met and he'd never kept it a secret from her since then, yet she still found herself forgetting because of how different he was with her. Never callous, never unfeeling, never cold. Quite the opposite, even. Always respectful, kind, warm.
Not for the first time she found herself having to consciously remember to not give too much of herself to him. Once before she'd confused herself by getting too close and she'd so very nearly made the same mistake again.
But Floyd Talbert wasn't a man she could trust with her heart. At least, not a man she could trust to take care of it.
No, she was better off staying away.