Word count; 2,109
Frances
— January 17th, 1945. Displaced Persons Camp, Belgium-France border.
My body welcomed the fresh, crisp air as I inhaled. Unlike the stillness of my dreams, or the sullenness of Bastogne, birdsong twirled throughout the air, alongside the muffled sound of voices going about their daily lives. My eyes took their time to adjust to the bright light of the early morning.
I was on a bed - one of many - sheltered by a large sheet that had been converted into an open tent. Nurses and doctors worked their way around, disappearing off to other similar structures, carrying basins and cloths and supplies. Crates were here and there, acting as work surfaces for the medics. To my right, another bed with another soldier, bandaged everywhere. Briefly, I struggled to remember what brought me here.
Each and every muscle ached, comforted by the lack of movement but frustrated that I ever exerted myself in the first place. My head tossed gently to my left, the straw pillow caressing my cheek. A medic sat on a wooden stool nearby, leaning with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together around a leather band bearing the cross. Instinctively, he looked up.
"E-Eugene?" I whispered.
Unsure whether to be shocked or delighted, he smiled. When I tried to move, he darted up, pressing his hands to my collarbone to keep me down.
"Whoa, whoa." He smiled more. "It's all right."
Hundreds of queries flashed through my mind, yet my voice wouldn't allow them to escape.
"You're all right?"
My lack of answer had him reaching for his canteen, pressing the neck of the bottle to my lips so I could sip some of the water within. An uncertain memory flashed through my mind; another doing the same thing, maybe. Elsewhere.
"Where am I?" I croaked.
He glanced around, "A field hospital. A DPC, just off the border of France."
I nodded, trying to gather my mind. Meanwhile, Eugene returned to his seat, somewhat expecting for there to be nothing more from the encounter.
"How?"
His brows furrowed, "You can't remember anything?"
Some things.
"That's okay." He said assuringly. "It's the trauma. Your mind is shoving out all things ugly."
I savoured the sentence; the last I could remember was the church, a medic finding me on the floor.
"You." I said after a while. "You carried me. To the street."
He flicked through his own memory, wondering when this was. Then, he realised: carried me from the church, put me down, only to return and find me gone. That was just over two weeks ago.
"That's what you remember?"
I nodded. He smiled again, somewhat disappointingly.
"Was there more?"
His head bobbed, "A lot. But that's okay."
A group of soldiers waltzed by the front of the shelter, catching my eye. Oh, yes. There was a lot more. My heart fell.
"I remember." I said, not realising tears were already swelling in my eyelids.
After all, I still wore the shirt of another.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He noticed my sorrow.
"I don't know." I shrugged pathetically. "I can't remember enough."
"Tell me what you can."
My eyes dropped to my fingernails, and he followed my gaze.
"Want me to tell you some stuff?"
I nodded, a tear rolling down my cheek.
"Do you..." He dug into his memories again. "Do you remember the foxhole? You gave Liebgott's dogtags to Sergeant Martin?"
Another tear, another nod.
"You collapsed." He understood that I didn't know this part. "We took you into Bastogne. You had..." The medic point at his shoulder. "A really bad infection. A lot of hematoma - all that swelling on your face. Your fingernails..." He cleared his throat. "I believe you were suffering from sepsis, or something similar. That's why you've been in these long sleeps. Back at the church and now. Your body's fighting it."
I swallowed, hard.
"You remember me taking you outside?"
I bobbed my head.
"I came back to find you and you were gone."
"I crawled." I bit the inside of my cheek. "With the fire, I didn't know what to do."
"What then?"
"He was there."
"He?"
My stare narrowed on him; was he meaning to torture me more?
"Liebgott." I nearly wept at the statement. "I tried to carry him but then... then I'm here."
"Kennedy, you dragged him all the way back to that church. What was left of it, anyways. Do you not remember that?"
I shook my head.
He took a deep breath, "It's a miracle you're alive. That you both are."
I examined his pupils. Inhale. Exhale.
"He's alive?"
"I have no idea how." He chuckled. "He had four gunshot wounds. And with his blood... I really don't know."
A recollection of Gene patching up Liebgott's broken nose, explaining that his blood didn't clot easily.
"He's been in and out of it, a lot less than you. Can walk, talk, smoke." Another chuckle. "He made me promise not to leave your side. Said that if I weren't a medic, he'd throw me across the clearing."
I tittered, the first joy I had felt in so, so long. My arms gathered enough strength to wipe my tears away.
"Maybe you just needed time."
"Can..." I crossed my arms. "Can I see him?"
"He'll be here." He looked over his shoulder. "Rules are no-one but me and Winters can, given everything. But it was easier just to say yes to him than argue. So, every evening before the sun sets, I stand watch for ten minutes. He sits here, talks... one night I turned around and he was asleep."
I sucked in a breath, "Thank you, Gene."
"Anything, Lieutenant."
I didn't remember falling asleep, yet when a vehicle of some kind rolled by, I wasn't disturbed to wake up. Still in the same bed, the same position, covered by a woollen blanket Eugene had found. For once, my body didn't battle with every movement I made. I squinted across the darkening shelter.
And there he was.
In the same chair where Eugene once stood guard, cigarette between his lips, an arm cradling his own torso, trying to comfort the strain from a healing wound. One of my fingers twitched, and his gaze darted up from his lap.
"Hey, doll."
His words melted away each and every pent-up nerve in my body. I blinked away my sobs.
"Aren't you happy to see me?"
I grinned, rubbing under my eyes, "You're alive."
"Barely." He tutted. "Especially with Chuck following me around like a dog, making sure I don't trip. How you feeling?"
I nodded for an answer. He leant forward with a slight grimace, still holding onto his torso.
"Never thought you'd get this far, huh?"
I extended my arm, his eyes flickering shut as I cupped his cheek. "I thought you were dead."
"Me too." His eyes were redder when they opened, holding back from an outburst.
He pressed his hand against mine, removing it from his cheek and settling it on his knee. For a while, he examined my fingernails, releasing a sigh.
"Sorry." He smiled half-heartedly. "I never had the chance to ask. It wasn't my place to, at least."
Luckily, my body had healed much since then, the pain long forgotten.
"God, I'm so angry." He grinned with a scoff, fighting off the tears.
"It wasn't the worst part."
He understood immediately; when we first reuinited, the only thing I had on were my trousers and my boots.
"I've never done anything so fast in my life." He referred back to the hole he put in Lehmann's head. "I can't stop thinking about it. Wished I killed every single last one of those motherfuckers."
"They didn't..." I felt a need to explain, to relieve his vexation. "They didn't... do it."
He looked up, cigarette still burning away.
"They were going to. He was going to. But they were called away." I sniffed. "That's how I escaped... and found you. But I had never been so scared. I was begging, screaming. Didn't mean a thing."
His stare lowered, evidently rethinking that night. "I'm never going to let that happen to you again. Never again."
I squeezed his palm, attempting a simper, "Hold your hand and don't let go."
He pecked my knuckles.
"I was right, though."
He raised a brow.
"You took that bullet for me."
He laughed, rawly. "Wasn't just one, sweetheart."
Three days had passed and almost everything was back to normal. I had been given new clothes, new kit, new boots. All of the bruises had died down, the cuts healed. My bones acted as if they could actually hold up my frame.
Accompanied by Eugene, we entered a large tent, cigarette smoke suffocating the air. There was a vast wooden table - perhaps stolen from an upmarket house of some kind - with two officers sat by. On the one side, Nixon, sipping his liquor. Opposite him, Spiers - the then Lieutenant I had first met at Aldbourne, from Dog Company. No Welsh. No Compton. No Captain Winters.
"Lieutenant." Nix stood up, somewhat shocked.
"Captain." I greeted.
"Uh, Dick's just up at battalion." He moved forward. "Not that that matters. Do you know how much of a headache you've caused me?"
"Good to see you too, Nix."
He swayed, as if beginning for an embrace, but I stepped away instinctively. Almost frowing to himself, he had a swig of his liquor that had followed him from the table.
"Uh, this here is-" He somewhat forgot.
"Spiers. Captain Spiers." I supplied.
The man was sat back in his chair smoking a thin cigar. He'd watched what had happened between Nixon and I, and made his own assumptions from afar; be delicate.
"Met before?"
"Aldbourne." Spiers stood up, "Intelligence Officer, right? Though, you were more of a nurse back then if anything."
He was before me, now, at a great distance, smoke pouring from his nostrils.
"Mr Hollywood here is the C.O. of Easy Company." Lewis explained.
"What happened to Winters?" I raised a brow.
"He got a promotion." He said, venom in his tone.
"Compton?"
"W.I.C." Wounded in combat.
"Harry?"
"Same thing."
I looked over my shoulder, forgetting Eugene hadn't left.
"It's me, inebriate over there, and you," Spiers sucked on his cigar. "We're trying to get battalion to move up on this battlefield commission for Lip, but they're taking their sweet ass time."
"So it's just you two."
Spiers furrowed his brows, "Not up to play?"
"Thought the U.S. Army wouldn't want much more to do with me after all of this, hon."
"Well, the U.S. Army can suck my dick for all I care." He turned around. "We need the numbers. And if anything, you've shown how much of an asset you are by what happened at Foy."
"What happened at Foy?"
Spiers shot a look at Nix, who in return regarded the medic behind me.
"She was in the hospital."
Nodding in approval, Ron cleared his throat, "Well, we were able to preempt the Germans on their attack on Foy. Saved a lot of lives - at least with Dike gone. All thanks to you."
I breathed in heavily, struggling to recall that far. My memory was what placed me in the army, and yet I couldn't rely on it now.
"So, if the U.S. Army wants nothing to do with you, they'll answer to me."
"And me." Lewis smirked. "Not that that means a lot."
"And Richard." Spiers gestured to the door of the tent.
"Well," I stirred, craving the hand of someone else. "What do I do now?"
Ron leant against the stable, crossing his arms, "Put you in charge of a platoon, keep you in HQ, whatever you want, Lieutenant, you just tell me."
I clenched my fists, briefly feeling the rawness of my fingertips. Images of my swollen face, my battered body, flashed through my mind. In this recollection, I was thrown over a table.
"Kennedy?" Eugene whispered, pressing gently against my lower back.
My head snapped towards him. Searching his eyes, I thought back to the exact same reason I said yes to Erlander at Fort Benning.
"What platoon?" I asked.
Somewhat proud, the Captain glanced at Lewis, "1st?"
Nixon nodded supportingly.
"1st it is. You'll be P.C., with... Martin as your Sergeant."
I smiled, relieved to hear such familiar names.
"This evening is the full brief - next orders and such. 19h00. Make it?"
I inclined my head. Eugene followed me back outside of the tent, holding a smile that I hadn't seen since Aldbourne.
"What is it?" I probed.
"Platoon Commander."
"What about it?"
He made a sort of gesture, and I understood instantly. We'd come far, him and I.