Clods of earth spilled over them. Shells sunk into the frozen ground before imploding and spitting icy shards of sod into the smoky air. The bite of the artillery collided into the trees, ripping them in half. Some uprooted completely, thudding into the snow. Edith sensed one just miss their foxhole.
Every nerve was raw. Every ounce of sense tore into her flesh, urging her to throw Alex off of her back and run. Run until her lungs burst. Anything to get away from that helpless hole. A sitting target for Germany artillery to blast off the face of the earth.
The attack only lasted five minutes at most but it felt like twenty.
"That was too close." She heard Alex mutter by her ear as the shells abated.
Tight in the fetal position, she didn't move. She pressed her face into her gloves, helmet digging into the ground. She couldn't bring herself to sit up.
"Edith." Alex breathed, pulling her upright.
He lifted her chin, inspecting her neck. They trembled down her torso in search of unseen wounds. She was healthy and whole. But unable to tell him so. As he met her wide eyes, she realized he was as scared as she felt.
A simple revelation dawned on her. Men never got used to combat. It wasn't something they adjusted to like water temperature. Edith had assumed that the men she worked with were battle hardened. It made their bravery all the more astounding.
The quiet only lasted seconds before the cries of wounded men rose into the thick air. Somewhere out in the drifting smog, a soldier moaned. It snapped Edith out of her trance. Pulling herself up from the ground, she peered over the edge of the foxhole. A good fifty yards from them was a man writhing in pain. She braced her hands on the sides to lift herself onto ground level. Alex grabbed her.
"Wait- wait, that man-" she blurted as she struggled against him.
Alex wrapped an arm around her shoulders from behind and sat them both hard on the ground. A strangled cry rose for the medic and a man with a red cross on his helmet rushed past their hole.
"Wait- there are more wounded, I can hear them-"
"Edith, it's a tactic. The Germans send in the first attack and wait for us to help the wounded. Then send another to cause more casualties." Alex explained, Edith resisting him where she sat between his knees, "Stop, Edith. There isn’t anything you could do."
He braced her back against his chest as the snow picked up, coming down in clumps as thick as cotton blossoms. Her breathing evened out as it became in sync with the rise and fall of Alex's chest. She swallowed hard and shut her eyes.
"They were right on top of us, weren’t they?" She whispered.
Alex's grip around her middle and shoulders tightened. He rested his face into the upturned collar of her coat at the back of her neck, "Yes."
The cool drip of terror slid into her heart as she peered up into the trees. Like comets from the books in her father's study, the shells left a tail of light. Another barrage filled the sky.
Edith flew forward into the ground, covering her face as Alex's body dropped over her. This time, the fear in her chest discovered a crack to root in. It ripped through her brain till she thought she would go mad.
Alex couldn’t have been more right, she had been stupid. Lying in the dirt, she knew she was nothing but a stupid girl playing soldier. Awash with shame, she recalled the times she had scoffed at the men she called desk jockeys. She had fancied herself capable of handling battle should she ever see it, just like her father had.
Edith bit her lip till she drew blood. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Jesus,” she croaked in a short prayer, her first in almost a year, “Please Jesus.”
They didn't sit up straight away when the shells ceased falling the second time. After five minutes, the Germans backed off. Alex bounded from the ground.
"Edith!" He snapped.
She rose to see Alex holding out a hand. She took it and he heaved her up. He raced towards the CP. Though ragged, it was still standing. Edith shuddered as a fractured trunk cracked and collapsed. She scanned the debris ridden forest, numb with horror. The two medics in the company were assessing the wounded who lay on the ground.
Edith tugged off her helmet. Her hand crept past the damp ring of sweat on her forehead up under her hat. She rubbed her fingers though her messy strands, her knitted cap falling to the ground. She approached two prostrate figures.
One of the medics shoved past her and tumbled down beside the wounded soldier. It was the man she had spied struggling between attacks. A splinter the size of a bayonet impaled his thigh, the snow around him steeped in red. He was grey faced but alive. The medic who had ventured from his hole to help him lay next to him. His helmet was concave, a heavy fallen branch buried in the fresh snow nearby. He wasn't moving. Edith couldn't tell through his many layers if he was even breathing.
The soldier with the leg screamed as the medic tried to pull the wood from his flesh. A few more of the men wandered over to see if they could help. Edith stood helpless, staring at the scene like the spectator in a nightmare.
"Edith?"
She looked up as Porter rushed towards CP, his head bare and collecting snow in his thick hair.
"Port! Get her out of here!" Alex hollered, holding a radio to his ear. He covered the speaker and waved once more as an officer brought him a map, "Port! Now!" He shouted again without looking at her.
Edith felt Michael Porter's palms on the sides of her arms.
"Come on. Let's get you back, Edith." He chided, coaxing her away in the general direction of the road where she had parked her jeep.
As they walked by the CP, Alex didn't glance in her direction. Swallowed up by orders and officers, trying to make sense of what happened, he was doing his job. She could never be that efficient after coming so close to death. She now knew this to be a sad fact.
Halfway to the vehicle, Edith began to shake. She was going into shock. Porter wrapped a secure arm around her shoulders as she tripped over a hidden mound of dirt in the drifts.
"Almost there." His breath came warm by her bare cheek.
She felt him brush away the hair loose from her braid but didn't register his touch. Her teeth chattered as she repeated a mantra in her mind.
I am alive. I am whole. Thank You Jesus.
Porter helped her into the passenger side of the vehicle.
I am alive. I am whole. Thank You Jesus.
"Here. Take this." He closed her hand around his silver flask, the metal warm from the inside of his coat.
Lifting it to her mouth, she threw back a swallow of the poisonously strong whiskey. It burned down her throat. Porter patted her shoulder blade, the weight of his hand on her back calming her. As she felt the liquor race into her veins, her trembling lessened.
"That a girl, Edith." He murmured as she took one more drink before giving it over.
The engine cough with cold and revved as he hit the pedal. They drove through the grey afternoon. Edith was vaguely aware of Porter's arm wrapped around the back of her seat.
I am alive. I am whole.
Thank You Jesus. Thank You.
The words picked up the rhythm of the roll and thump of the tires. They hit a rough patch of debris in the road. Porter's arm came around her shoulders. He tucked her to his side as he traversed the rough terrain with one hand on the wheel. He let her go once they made it to even ground. She wished he hadn't. He had been warm.
She didn't even realize they were back in the city till they stopped in front of Division HQ.
"Where are you quartered?" Porter asked, peering over at her.
Taking a shaky breath, she pointed to a townhouse at the end of the road, "There."
Porter shifted the gear and drove past the piles of rubble that loomed in the twilight. As he stopped, she almost tumbled from the jeep onto the ruined sidewalk. Porter was again at her side, grasping her upper arm to steady her as he walked her into the building. The floorboards creaked as they climbed up the winding staircase. They halted at the landing where her room was located.
"Can you make it from here, kid?" Porter asked, stepping back as he faced her by the door.
"I think so." Edith swallowed hard, her eyelids like sandpaper as she blinked at her hand on the knob.
Porter reached out and lifted her chin with his knuckle. After searching her face, he managed a small smile, "You'll be okay."
He took out his flask once more and offered it.
She shook her head, "You're right, I will be."
Without another word, Edith entered the dark room and closed the door.
When she awoke the next morning, the pale light ripped into her conscious. Edith found that she had fallen asleep in her clothes. Her boots had left damp smears of dirt and crimson on the covers.
It was early afternoon by the time she received a request to see her father. Edith was surprised that it took him so long to summon her. But she now knew he had more important things to worry about than a wayward daughter trying to prove herself.
Colonel Dixon made a double take of his daughter as his orderly led her into his small office.
"Edith." He motioned to the chair in front of his desk. His expression shifted between rage and concern. "Sit."
Edith obeyed. Her shoulders hunched she clasped her hands together on her lap. She looked down at them. They were trembling.
"I'm assuming you know why I have called you here."
"Yes sir."
"I don't know what to say to you. I have never known you to be so reckless, so thoughtless, so..."
"Stupid is the word, sir." she glanced up, "Though selfish could work as well."
Colonel Dixon exhaled through his nose as he glared at her. "Captain McKay said there was an attack while you were visiting yesterday."
"Yes sir."
"Thank heaven for that man. Sounds like he kept you alive and from the looks of it he did a good job." Colonel Dixon reached for a glass tumbler of his favorite whiskey and threw it back in one pull, "Good man."
"Good man." Edith repeated, peering back down at her fingers.
"You know this means you will have to be sent from the line. My superiors are in the dark about this little episode and will remain so. Otherwise, you'd be demoted and on the next transport for the states."
He stood and moved towards a trunk by the window. Retrieving a bottle of whiskey, he returned to the desk and filled the glass. He held it out to Edith. She opened her mouth to refuse.
"I'm not offering it, Edith. Just take a drink." He directed before she could speak.
Meeting his eyes, she did as her father requested. Like the night before with Captain Porter's flask, the shot cut a raw path down to her stomach. She coughed and set the glass down on the desk. Her trembling stopped.
"So I will be going back to Mourmelon?"
"Not yet, just deeper into unoccupied France. Where you can't get into any more trouble." He spit the words as he drank, "Your mother will never know of this either. It would destroy her. Do you understand me?"
"Yes sir."
"Your transport will be here in an hour. You are dismissed."
Edith left the office. Emerging out into the chilled sunlight, she closed her eyes and inhaled.
I am alive. I am whole.
She felt like the events from the day before had left her half a person on the inside. Opening her eyes, a truck with an open bed stopped in front of her. Edith looked up into the vehicle and realized she knew the young soldier studying her. A cigarette was trembling on the edge of his mouth where he sat propped up by a medic beside him.
As he nodded, Edith realized it was Sergeant Rodriguez to whom she had given a ride the other day. Edith didn't respond. Her sight trailed down to his legs that the medic was wrapping in gauze. Before the man threw a blanket over Rodriguez, Edith saw that both legs were missing from the knee down.
The vehicle jolted and drove down the road. Edith's stomach roiled. She ducked down a nearby alley. Bracing her hand against a brick wall, she threw up what breakfast she had managed to eat that morning.
Later, the transport arrived right on time. She left Bastogne by mid-afternoon.
ns 15.158.61.11da2
