Blood, Dreams, and Olive Drab (Pride & Promise) Read online

  A towering mountain of corpses, limbs, torsos, skulls, fingers, feet, brains, and partially-beating hearts bludgeoned his mind. Henry’s brow was a deluge of sweat, drenching his thoughts as his own heart pounded within the cage of his chest. He took a couple small feeble steps backwards and could barely catch his breath as the carnage of the dream lived vividly in his mind.

  His thoughts were poisoned with the visuals that echoed gravely in his mind, and as much as he tried to hide the thoughts and feelings deep in the far reaches of his head, they kept treading on his brain. He tasted sourness in his mouth and his stomach burned with pain.

  Henry’s eyes used to be lively and fun; now they were surrounded by dark circles. He glanced away. He found it hard to look into the mirror anymore and a dull numb pain twisted into his neck as he gazed upon himself. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he felt awkward, questioning his own mortality. He imagined himself being zipped into a bag, his heart stopped, and his life never again being normal.

  He leaned onto the sink and could feel the coolness of the porcelain against his palms. Sweat dripped off his hands. He looked up and stared into the mirror. His face was just inches from the glass, but he couldn’t see his chin or cheeks, just his eyes. He used to be able to see a smile, or a tear, but now there was nothing. He peered into the soul of a stone, blank and dim. He wiped his fingers across his eyes and leaned away from the mirror. He tried to walk out but turned to take one more look. But he couldn’t. He walked out--frightened.

  "Go get 'em, Romeo," Sergeant Welky growled.

  The heat from the last few days had subsided and a cool breeze whistled through the hamlet. Henry stopped, and in a dazed moment slipped his shoes off and just let his feet rest flat against the curves of the cobblestones. They felt good and cool on the balls of his feet before the rising sun had a chance to heat them. The stones felt so smooth and hard under his toes. He tilted his head back.

  The morning sun was just peeking through the tiny gaps in the buildings. It stretched long across his face, warming him slightly. It felt good. He opened his eyes and saw the tanned faces and white eyes of the two men across the street who watched him from their veranda window. They snuck back into the shadows and closed the window. Henry, in an instance of brevity, slipped back on his shoes and scurried down the lane.

  It was a short walk to the café and a little bell rang as Henry entered. The heavy door swung loudly shut behind him so he jumped slightly as the door startled him.

  "Henry?" a soft woeful voice called from the back room.

  "Y-Yes," Henry stammered. He nervously looked around the café at a few haggardly-looking fellows. They sneered at him and whispered to each other. Their eyes were lifeless as bitter grins broke across their small faces and they laughed roughly.

  "Henry?" Marie called as she came out of the back room. She still had a slight problem pronouncing his name, but she was trying. "Where do we go?" she said. Her English skills were definitely improving.

  "I thought we could take a walk down to the canal. Maybe take some food," Henry said. He took a fistful of flowers out from behind his back and offered them to Marie. She grinned gratefully and you could see some of the sadness melting away from her warm cheeks. The men at the table snickered a tad.

  "I’ll put food in basket," Marie blushed as she took the flowers with her. Henry sat stiffly on a stool and placed his hands on his knees, then he spun slowly towards the bar, setting his elbows on the countertop. He could feel the two men staring at his back. He clasped his hands together, rubbing his thumbs.

  "We go," Marie smiled. She came through the doorway with a picnic basket hanging from her arms.

  "Yes. We go." Henry gave the three men at the table a quick glance. They were staring hard at him but they were not laughing anymore. Henry stumbled over the stool, catching his foot under the leg. He straightened up, placing his hand in the small of Marie’s back as they walked quickly out the door.

  They strolled down along the canal where the water looked dark and glassy. The sky was hazy and the scant sunlight shown a milky white through the clouds. They found a small piece of ground that was covered by clumps of crab grass. All around it were clods of dirt.

  Marie took out a red and white blanket. She started to unfold it and Henry took it from her. He delicately flapped the blanket until it spread evenly over the tufts of grass. He laid it gently onto the ground like a child into a crib and flattened out the corners. He stepped back, smiled, and playfully bowed to Marie. She smiled back at him, curtsied, and sat on her knees. Laughter is indeed a universal language.

  Marie opened the basket and took out a few things wrapped in white butcher’s paper. She laid the items down and unfolded the corners of the paper. It crinkled and a slight breeze blew it back over the pieces of chicken. Henry breathed deeply. The aroma of the chicken wafted on the breeze and it made his mouth water. She took out a bowl and the paleness of the pasta stood out against the deep brown color of the large round shape.

  "Good?" Marie asked. She looked up with fretful, questioning eyes.

  "Good?" Henry baited. "It’s great!" he barked.

  "Good," Marie said with a tender relief. She turned a shade of red and her shoulders slouched slightly as she relaxed.

  Henry took a piece of the chicken into his mouth and started chewing quickly, almost like an animal. Then he realized his company and lightly gnawed on the juicy white meat. Marie watched Henry closely and giggled daintily. He grinned at her with reservation as he surely didn’t want to make a bad impression. Marie took a piece of chicken from the plate and began devouring it. She eventually sucked almost the whole piece into her tiny mouth, shredding even the skin of the fried chicken from the bone. A light glaze of grease was on her cheeks and when she smiled, a few pepper flakes were stuck in her teeth.

  "Eat! Eat!" she urged.

  "Well, all right," Henry gleamed. He chomped through the chicken, ripping and tearing the meat like a hungry lion. He stopped and watched Marie for a second and was smitten with her again.

  Henry reached into the bowl of pasta and began wolfing it down, too. Marie tapped him on the shoulder. He thought that maybe he had gone too far and his manners were being questioned. Then he drew back his chest and tried as delicately as possible to wipe his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

  Marie was pointing down the canal to a tree that was casting a long thin shadow. A duck was poking its head out of a hole that was midway up the tree. It popped out of the hole and then fluttered to the ground below. The base of the tree was surrounded by a thick cushion of what looked like weeds, ivy vines, and a little crepe myrtle. When another small brown form appeared in the opening of the hole, it plopped down into the thicket of soft brush, too. Another duckling, and another duckling, again and again. The mother duck was strutting around the base of the tree like a drill sergeant instructing her whole team to jump.

  She yapped and quacked until each one toppled from the tree. Like trusting soldiers, they jumped as instructed. After crashing delicately into the weeds, they stood up and shook off the debris from their fuzzy coats and waddled out of the dense foliage. Another few dropped out of the tree as their mother was making her way down the slight incline and into the calm waters of the canal. Behind her, all nine ducklings slipped into the water like the launchings of quaint sloops. Tiny concentric circles spread out from their webbed feet.

  "Any port in a storm," Henry sighed. Marie tugged at his sleeve.

  "Port?" she inquired.

  "Ah . . . port." Henry tried to think of a way to explain. "Safe," he nodded. He folded his arms around his own body and hugged slightly. "Safe," he pronounced slowly.

  "Safe," Marie nodded, still struggling to understand. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  "Safe." Henry went through the hugging motion again. "Port," he said. He pointed into the direction of the ducks.

  "Safe . . . port," Marie repeated. Her face was sad and showed her confusion.

  "Port, sa
fe," Henry grinned widely. He looked into her eyes, seeing her start to understand. The heaviness of her sagging cheeks lifted and she understood.

  "Ah," she gasped. "Port," she said as she pointed to the ducks. "Safe." She embraced herself.

  "Right," Henry smiled.

  Marie took Henry’s arms, placing them over her shoulders and around her neck. "Safe," she shared.

  "Safe," Henry said softly. He gave her a slight squeeze, curling his lips into an affectionate smile. They looked into each other’s eyes and she let her eyelids close. Henry leaned towards her. He could almost feel the soft silkiness of her plump lips when suddenly, a thunderous explosion slammed down behind them.

  Henry curled himself around Marie. She tucked her knees into her chest, burrowing under him. He grabbed her by the arms and tugged her across the ground. They crawled under the side of the bridge embankment, wedging themselves next to the underside of the bridge. Another large explosion brought a trickling of sand and mortar down upon their heads. Henry could hear Marie starting to sob. He wrapped his arms tightly around her frail frame.

  "Safe, safe," she cried. He could feel her shaking in his arms. He pried her head upward, trying to look at her face. The dark hard orbs of her eyes darted and blinked wildly with each concussive wave. She had the scared frozen eyes of a child. Her hair was matted with chunks of rocks and clumps of dirt. He brushed the hair away from her face and steadied himself. Gently but firmly, he held her face in his hands.

  "Safe," he said boldly. But his words sounded hollow to himself. His ears were numb and ringing. He felt his own heart thumping hard in his chest, though he nodded bravely, looking deep into her soul. "Safe," he said again.

  He could feel her body stop shaking for a moment. Then another bomb crashed down. The core structure of the bridge shuddered. She buried her head into his chest, grabbing onto his arms with all her might. "Safe, safe, safe," he continued, muttering softly, trying to calm her. They rocked back and forth with their bodies becoming one huddled mass of fear. He shut his eyes and lightly kissed the top of her head. He caressed her soft hair as grit drizzled down over them. Each time the bridge was jarred by the falling death, they clung closer together.

  9

  Henry sat on the limestone stoop tossing pieces of gravel across the street. He watched them ricochet off the street and bounce against the wall across the way. They spun and dribbled down the cobblestones, coming to rest just outside the reach of the building’s long shadow. Henry was beyond boredom as he cast another pebble across the narrow street when he heard a loud rumbling up the street.

  He could hear the shifting of gears and the squeaking of worn brakes. A large bus was winding its way through the serpentine path with the edges of the bus’s roof just scraping along the eaves. The bus meandered down the cobble path, lurching and squeezing through the gorge of buildings like a fat man trying to maneuver himself into the arms of a small chair. A layer of dust coated the bus, but two holes were wiped clean over the driver’s windshield to be able to see. The bus slowly rolled to a halt as the brakes let out one more crying screech. Henry stood up and walked around the front of the beast as a short man with an angry face walked around.

  "Droppin' off and pickin’ up," he shouted as if the noise of the bus was still fresh in his ears.

  "What?" Henry looked bewildered.

  "Bodies . . . I’m droppin' off more bodies and pickin' up the bags." The little man pointed towards the open doors of the morgue. "Where’s Welky?"

  "He’s inside." Henry stepped quickly out of the way.

  "Passed out?" the little man frowned.

  "I . . . I don’t know," Henry shrugged with indifference.

  "Private Ford," the man stuck out his hand. "Most people call me Ernie."

  "Henry Schott," Henry replied. "And most people call me . . . Henry," he grinned awkwardly.

  "Okay, Henry," Ernie said. He removed his glasses, wiping them clean on the bottom of his dirty shirt. Two white circles like goggles surrounded his eyes where there was no dust. The rest of his face and neck were covered. He had big bushy eyebrows that hung down over his eyelids and a thin moustache that looked like it had been drawn on with a pencil. He stuck his glasses back across his face and marched around the bus. As he stomped back to the rear, Henry noticed that his arms were slightly bowed out from his back so it looked like his elbows were on backwards.

  "Do you want to try and wake Welky up to help?" Ernie gave the option. Then they both shook their heads in agreement. "You’re right. Let’s just do this ourselves."

  Ernie lifted up the latch, opening the doors on the rusty hinges which creaked as the doors opened. Ernie hopped up into the bus and waved for Henry to follow him. Either side of the bus was lined with three rows of stretchers that were fastened to metal rods that poked out from the side walls of the vehicle. White sheets were placed over each stretcher.

  There must have been about twenty dead men in the bus stacked in rows just inches above each other. Obviously, comfort was of no concern to these lads. The smell in the bus was nauseating as dozens of flies buzzed happily around the sheets. Henry felt a lump in his throat and swallowed hard and tried not to breathe deeply.

  "Never get used to that smell, never," Ernie chided with a glib sneer. His eyes were deep in his face so that Henry could barely see the blackness of his pupils through his foggy clean glasses. "How long have you been here?" Ernie coughed. He grabbed one of the stretchers, nodding to Henry.

  "Two months," Henry returned. He grabbed onto the other end of the stretcher and they hoisted it off the rack.

  "That’s about what I thought," Ernie smacked his gums. He grunted deeply as the weight of the stretcher sagged in his arms.

  "Why do you say that?" Henry inquired, knitting his brow with confusion. He struggled to walk backward down the narrow row. He pinned his arms as close to his body as he could to make himself smaller and felt a tense strain in his back.

  "It’s your eyes. You’ve got the look of a newbie," Ernie chuckled harshly.

  "What do you mean?" Henry inquired as he got to the door.

  "Just jump down," Ernie nodded. Henry took one step out of the bus and jumped down while holding onto the handles of the stretcher. The body moved down the stretcher and slid out from under the sheet, and the wilted flesh of the corpse’s head pressed against Henry’s chest.

  "Wow!" he shrieked. Henry’s eyes widened and he looked away.

  "That’s what I mean," Ernie snarled. He jumped down and shifted the stretcher in his hands so the body fell back under the sheet. "There’s a look in people’s eyes when they first see this stuff. It stays with you. When you’re awake, when you’re asleep, and even when you’re thinking about something totally different, it’s there. It’s always in your mind . . . ." Ernie’s voice was somewhat sympathetic. Slowly they walked up the stoop and placed the body on the floor.

  "Always?" Henry asked.

  "Always," Ernie’s voice climbed with emphasis. His squatty face was grave. They walked over to a black bag and picked it up off the floor and walked back to the bus.

  The conversation became one-sided. Ernie talked about his wife and three little girls back in the States. He was a postman. He joked that he still made pick-ups and deliveries but just of another kind but the joke fell well short of being funny.

  He was a member of the local lodge and enjoyed beer just as much as the next man. His wide angular jaw smiled broadly as he talked about the taste of beer. Ernie was quite the prodigious beer drinker, even if he did say so himself, and he did often. He told stories of drunken escapades, long nights that turned into early mornings, and the girls he scandalized before he met his blushing bride. He talked about his wife, their daughters, and the tedious quotidian details of raising them.

  "Hey, Ernie," Henry interrupted another monochromatic tale about the girls’ first dates, "how long have you been doing this?"

  "This?" Ernie looked blankly at Henry as they dragged another black bag back from the
bus.

  "Yeah," Henry tried to say with a certain amount of indifference, trying to not look quizzical, "you know, working with . . . bodies," he said sheepishly.

  "Oh, I guess it will be eight months," Ernie crunched his face together as he tried to think, " . . . next week."

  "Really?" Henry exclaimed. They climbed back into the stale humidity inside of the bus. No breeze blew through the metal walls and a heavy stagnant heat made the inside of the bus feel like a furnace.

  "Yeah," Ernie sighed, "old Welky’s been doin’ this for over two years."

  "Two years . . . ," Henry frowned. He stopped for a second on the way back out to the bus and looked at Welky, still dead to the world. His worn brown belt peeked out from under his rolls of fat. The hair from his back curled around his sleeveless shirt, outlining his flabby sides and back.

  "Yeah," Ernie said. The two stopped and looked at the drunken soldier like an exhibit at the local zoo. "I know what you’re thinkin’. I thought the same thing," Ernie shrugged. He took his glasses off his face and rubbed the two deep grooves on either side of the bridge of his nose. He squinted at Welky. "I asked the guys at headquarters what his problem was."

  "What did they say?" Henry asked with a genuine interest.

  "He was as straight an arrow as they come when he got here," Ernie said. He slid his glasses back onto his round face, running his palm over his sweaty forehead and back into his thinning hair. "He pressed his uniform. He was in perfect shape. Everything, I mean everything, was by the book," Ernie continued. Welky twisted a bit and the girth of his stomach sloshed slightly, like beer in a barrel.

  "What happened?" Henry felt a morbid uneasiness in his stomach. He shifted a bit, but it started to creep up his throat.