Front Lines (19 page)

She manages to take a decent picture of him, which she is sure will be much better than the high school yearbook picture she's been carrying. It becomes the photo she will hold close to her breast: happy, grinning rakishly, leaning against the Jenny.

He does not look at all like a younger, happier version of the Stamp Man.

No, not at all.

There is a thick book and a less thick book. The thick book is titled
The Medical Field Manual—Medical Service of Field Units
.

The army, Frangie notes upon receiving this book, is not good at catchy titles.

The manual is printed on cheap paper and is 294 pages long. Where one might normally find the copyright page, there is instead a statement that the manual has been prepared on orders of the army chief of staff, a creature so far above Private Frangie Marr that he might as well be the fourth member of the Trinity.

The contents page shows such enticing entries as “Medical Service in Camp and Bivouac,” “Medical Service on Marches,” and “Individual Equipment of Medical Department Officers and Enlisted Men.”

The moment when she is issued this book feels almost holy to Frangie. This will be her sacred text. This will
teach her to save lives. And, with a lot of luck and even more hard work, it may pave the way, someday, to Dr. Marr.

“Yes,” Frangie whispers, “the doctor will see you now.”

GENERAL DOCTRINES—a. Commanders at all echelons are responsible for—

Frangie is not clear on exactly what an
echelon
is. But she makes a note to find out.

—the provision of adequate and proper medical care for all noneffectives of their command.

Okay. Sure. Whatever that means. She scans down the page.

e. Casualties in the combat zone are collected at medical installations along the general axis of advance of the units to which they pertain.

Frangie sits at an outdoor table, a sort of wooden picnic table, at Fort Huachuca, in the emptiest part of the empty state of Arizona. For hundreds of miles in every direction there is sand, and there are rocks, and there are desolate hills, and there are multiple types of cactus: the cactus that
looks like a bunch of sword blades pointing out in every direction, the cactus that looks like a totem pole, the cactus that looks like a cluster of teddy bear ears with spikes.

And there is sun. No more Georgia humidity for Frangie; it's nothing but dry, hot, blazing sun.

Inevitably Fort Huachuca becomes
Fort Whatcha Got?
to the black soldiers stationed there. There is no town nearby, just a few Indians who suffer like the blacks from the contempt of the white soldiers. No one is happy to find themselves at this post in the middle of nowhere, but despite the isolation and the boredom, Frangie finds herself relaxing a bit.

She is here to learn medicine.

And, it seems, Sergeant Green is here now as well. She spotted him in line for chow, and saw him again later, running alongside a platoon and calling out cadence.

“My honey heard me comin' on my left, right, on left.

I saw Jody runnin' on his left, right, on left.

I chased after Jody and I ran him down,

Poor ol' boy doesn't feel good now.”

“MPs came a runnin' on their left, right, on left.

The medics came a runnin' on their left, right, on left.

He felt a little better with a few IVs.

Son, I told you not to mess with the infantry.”

He had given her a tight nod of recognition as he passed, and that had pleased her. And she had felt a particular pride watching soldiers who looked like her go passing by, so fit and disciplined. This fort had once housed the buffalo soldiers who had fought the Indians in the surrounding nothingness. What her big brother, Harder, used to sneeringly describe as “black men killing red men for white men.”

Now she glances up from the manual to look around at the sun-blasted landscape, at the barracks nearby—one of which is reserved for the tiny number of black medical trainees and the few black doctors and nurses who do their training—and at the row of jeeps and civilian cars over by the HQ building, and then up at the sinister, tumbleweed-covered hills that seem to wedge the fort in.

Not that she is looking for Sergeant Green. She would have nothing to say to him unless it was to repeat her thanks, and Green rather intimidates Frangie, so she knows idle chatter is not a good idea.

Still . . .

She returns her attention to the manual. Unfortunately
The Medical Field Manual
does not contain any information pertaining to actual medicine. That is to be found in
the somewhat smaller (seventy-eight pages) manual with the title
Bandaging and Splinting
.

Bandaging and Splinting
is a real page-turner, heavily illustrated with drawings of everything from the “
cravat bandage of eye
” to “
triangle of foot bandage
” to the rather pretty “
roller bandage
” to the “
basic arm splint.
”

This is, without the slightest doubt, the most interesting book Frangie has ever read. As she reads and looks closely at the diagrams, she plays out the moves, winding and tying around imaginary arms, legs, necks, and heads.

Bandages should be applied evenly, firmly, and not too tightly. Excessive pressure may cause interference with the circulation and may lead to disastrous consequences.

This makes her laugh, though she's not sure why.

“You find it entertaining, Private?”

Frangie looks up, shielding her eyes against the sun, spots captain's bars on a shoulder, jumps to her feet—not easily done at a picnic table—and snaps a salute.

“Sir?”

He's a black man, an actual black officer, stocky, not very tall, probably in his forties, almost totally bald with just a fringe of hair that looks like it's doomed to continue retreating.

“I asked if you found it amusing.”

“No, sir. I mean, I guess I did, sir.”

He reaches past her, flips though a few pages in the book, nods. “This is good information. I assume you're hoping to be a nurse.”

“No, sir. I'm hoping to be a doctor. But first a medic. I want to be a medic.”

“Do you?” he asks skeptically. “Has anyone told you what the job entails?”

“Entails, sir?”

He belatedly returns her salute, allowing her to put her hand down.

“You know, medics end up in bad places, Private. They end up in very bad places.”

Frangie shrugs with one shoulder—the other shoulder remembered that you do not shrug at superior officers. “I didn't figure many colored outfits would be allowed to fight.”

That causes him to tilt his head and look at her appraisingly. “Well, that may be. Then again, it may not. I'm not sure the brass will always be able to keep colored units back like they did in the last war. But I can't help but notice some up-to-date cannon and such appearing, and I doubt that's just for show. Might be you'll end up at the sharp end.”

“Yes, sir.” You rarely went wrong saying “Yes, sir.”

“You think you could handle that? Trying to keep a
wounded man alive while you're getting shot at?”

She starts an automatic “yes, sir” but stops herself. Something about this captain does not strike her as that sort of officer, the kind looking to be saluted and “yes, sir'ed” regardless of circumstances.

She takes a chance. “Are you a doctor, Captain?”

“Now what makes you think that?”

“I . . . I don't know, sir.”

“Is it the somewhat unmilitary look of my uniform?”

Now that she thinks of it, his uniform isn't exactly a model of perfection. There's a small soup stain on his olive drab tie, his shirttail is trying hard to escape his waistband, and his boots are not boots. In fact, they're carpet slippers.

The captain is wearing slippers out of doors, while in uniform. No, that is not quite military. But the shoulder patch of the caduceus—two snakes twined about a pole beneath a dove's wings—definitely indicates that he's in the medical service in some capacity.

He winks, understanding that she cannot say anything critical, being just a private. “I am a doctor, as it happens. I'm a thoracic surgeon by trade, and an army captain by virtue of my local draft board.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You haven't answered my question. Do you think you can kneel beside a man whose intestines are lying on the
ground and tell that man he's going to be all right, and sew him up quick and slap on a bandage and get him to an aid station while German artillery is dropping all around you?”

“I don't know, sir.”

There's a sad twinkle in his eye. “Good answer. I don't know either, I have not been asked to do that. What I do know is that as a medic you won't be carrying a gun, you won't get to shoot back, and you'll have a nice big red-and-white cross on your helmet that lets everyone know you're a medic. If you think the enemy won't take aim at that cross, you're mistaken.”

She squares her shoulders, feeling pushed by the doctor, feeling challenged. “I don't know, sir, but I don't think I'm a coward.”

“Hmm,” he says thoughtfully. He pulls a thankfully clean handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to her. Then he sits down beside her and lays his arm on the table. “Bullet wound. Lots of blood. What do you do first?”

For just a second she freezes. What is this? She hasn't even taken a single class yet, she barely knows where her cot is, and she wouldn't recognize her new sergeant if he walked up and said howdy.

“First thing, see if it's an artery or something smaller.”

“And?”

She presses the ball of her palm down on his arm. “It's
an artery. It's pulsing. I press down to slow the blood.”

“It hurts. Give me morphine.”

“Not yet, sir.” Then, unsure of her snap answer, she says, “Right?”

“Morphine might put me into shock,” he says. “Priorities. First priority, don't let me bleed to death while you're shooting me up with morphine.”

“Yes, sir.” And now, strange as it seems, she's enjoying this. “Pressure to slow the bleeding. Sulfa powder.” She mimes tearing open a package with her teeth and sprinkling powder on the wound. Then, with her one free hand she folds his handkerchief just like the illustration she saw earlier and wraps this around his arm.

She mimes something else, and he interrupts to say, “What are you doing?”

“Sir, I'm making a thick square of gauze to place under the bandage to help keep the pressure on.” She wraps the actual handkerchief over the imaginary gauze and ties it off.

The doctor inspects her work. “Well, I'll bleed to death most likely.”

Frangie is crestfallen.

“You didn't check the other side of my arm, Private. Bullets go in, but they often come out, too, and when they come out they make a much bigger mess than when they go in.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stands up. “I'm Dr., er, Captain Washington. And I'm going to guess that you have applied bandages before.”

“Just on animals, sir.”

“Ah. Tender heart, eh?”

“Sir, I . . .”

“A tender heart is not a bad thing in a medic, or a doctor.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you study hard, Private . . .”

“Marr, sir. Private Frangie Marr.”

“Okay, Marr. You study hard. You study so you know it all, not just in your head but in your fingers. That's where the real memory is. In your fingers, in your hands. When you're getting shot at your brain may forget and only your hands remember.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right.” He blows air out, making a fluttery sound with his lips. “The instructors are mostly hard-asses and they will be all over you, you understand, you being a female. Most of them don't much like the notion of a young woman out in the action.”

“But not you, sir?”

“Well, Private, I don't like the idea of judging people by superficial criteria. I'll judge you the same way I judge every other candidate who comes through here.”

Only then does it dawn on Frangie that this doctor, this captain, is in charge.

“I'll judge you by your work, and on whether I think you can send boys home alive who by rights should be dead. If you screw up, if you don't memorize those manuals, and more besides, I'll wash you out. That may sound harsh—”

“No, sir.”

“No?”

“Either I'm good enough or I'm not, sir.”

He nods and smiles. “Good talking to you, Private.”

They salute, and Frangie sits back down, shaking. Then she notices the handkerchief.

“Sir!” she holds it up.

“Keep it. Practice with it. That was a sloppy cravat. Sergeant Peel will scalp you if you show her that kind of work.”

She says “yes, sir” again and opens her manual. And once she's sure the captain is out of earshot, she grins hugely and says, “This is going to be fun.”

“Okay, deck six, forward eight, row B, bunk number seventeen,” Rio reads off the paper in her hand. She carries sixty pounds' worth of gear, has just waited three hours to begin boarding, and then spent two hours just shuffling along in rows of packed bodies to find her spot.

“So this is luxury travel,” Jenou says.

“Biggest, fastest, fanciest ship afloat,” Cat says.

“It is magnificent,” Rio agrees. “I especially like the way they've managed to stack the bunks four high.”

The
Queen Mary
's once-lovely cabins and staterooms have been largely stripped out, bulkheads knocked down to transform the lower decks into vast steel boxes stuffed to an almost comical degree with bunks. The bunks are four high and touch end to end, so a person could crawl the entire length of the hold without ever touching the deck. Not that anyone would want to. The aisle between two rows of bunks was just two feet wide, which barely
allowed the heavily laden GIs to move to their assigned locations.

“I'm on the top level,” Rio says glumly. “So a nice, close-up view of that pipe up there.”

“I'm right below you,” Jenou says with matching glumness.

“It'll be just like sleepover camp, kids,” Rio says with mock cheer. “We can light a campfire and roast marshmallows.”

“You've never gone to sleepover camp.”

“No,” Rio admits. “But the other comparison I could make is to sardines in a can.”

“She's fast, that's all that matters,” Cat offers.

“You in a hurry, Cat?” Jenou asks.

“She's faster than Kraut subs,” Cat says. “That's the point.”

This is a sobering thought. Reassuring, but also sobering.

The hold is already hot when they come aboard. It grows hotter over the next few days. The hold already smells of paint, varnish, and ancient body odor at the outset, but those are good times fondly remembered a few days later when the hold reeks of vomit, overflowing toilets, sweat, farts, cigarette smoke, and more vomit, as well as the paint and varnish. At times Rio is convinced the air in the hold is no more than 10 percent actual, breathable air.

This particular section is occupied solely by women, but the open-air decks are available to all, with the result that masses of frustrated, nervous, bored, and seasick GIs regularly pack the upper decks from rail to rail.

Under a chilly sun Rio and Jenou take the air, straining every nerve to ignore the incessant catcalls and lewd entreaties of male soldiers.

“Hey, girls, my bunk's pretty crowded, but I can make room for both of you.”

“Come here, honey, there's something I want to show you.”

“Oh yeah, Daddy likes what
she's
got.”

“Hey, Joe, that private has titties.”

“Come on, honey, just a little kiss.”

Some of the men from Rio's company try vainly to stop the harassment, but this has led to several fistfights. The ship's captain has several times made announcements over the public address system, but GIs ignore sailors, even captains. So if Rio intends to breathe actual oxygen she has no choice but to endure a stream of abuse so constant it becomes background noise, like the thrum of the engines or the howl of the wind in the wires.

“Ladies, I've got something for you. It's right here in my pants.”

“Come on now, sweet things, what are you doing, holding out for an officer?”

“Officers got tiny dicks; you want a real man.”

“Holding out till the Germans get her, then we'll see how long she can hold on to her chastity.”

All of this is accompanied by hoots, whistles, gestures, and, on occasion, dropped trousers. Rio is used to a certain amount of this, but being trapped in close quarters with thousands of keyed-up men who do not know her has made it all much, much worse.

They are three days out before Rio hears a familiar male voice.

“Rio? Is that you?”

She turns warily to see Strand Braxton.

“Strand!”

“How long have you been . . . Well, I guess it's obvious, isn't it, that you've been aboard the whole time. I never saw you!”

He is as tall as ever, as good-looking as ever, his smile as dazzling as ever. He moves as if to take her in his arms but she glances meaningfully over his shoulder to the stacked rows of avidly observant men on the deck and on the stairs and the officers watching just as avidly but with more decorum from the upper decks.

Strand quickly grasps the point and extends a hand, which she gratefully takes and holds longer than necessary.

“You look swell,” she says.

“So do you. I can't believe you're here. I wish—” He stops when he realizes there's a soldier literally at his knees, gazing up at the two of them. “Come on,” he says. Then, “You too, Jenou.”

But Jenou knows better. “No, I think I'll just stay here and breathe the fresh air and fresher comments.”

“You can take the brunette,” someone shouts, “but leave us the blonde.”

Jenou rolls her eyes. “My public demands I stay. You two go catch up. Hey, wait!”

Strand and Rio turn back to see Jenou snapping a salute.

“Oh, Lord, I—” Rio says, blushing, and then salutes Strand, who now wears lieutenant's bars.

“Yeah, that's enough of that,” Strand says, returning the salutes. He taps his insignia of rank. “All this means is I've got a high school diploma. We have enlisted pilots, but they're stuck flying transport, and well . . . the pay's better.”

Strand guides Rio through the mass of men, up a set of steel steps and another to the lifeboat deck. Here the big lifeboats—enough for less than half the men aboard—hang on davits. The boats are covered with canvas tarps drawn tight with ropes passed through brass grommets. But the boat farthest aft has had its canvas covering loosened.

Strand shows her how to climb up and into the boat. Inside, four men, all flyers like Strand, lounge in the shade playing a desultory game of cards. There are cans of beer and a half-empty bottle of whiskey and makeshift ashtrays piled to overflowing with cigarette butts.

“Hey, guys, meet my girl. Rio, these are some of the boys. Lefty, Choke, Bandito. Not their real names, of course. We use nicknames so when we're talking on radio we don't confuse ourselves; we've already got two Smiths.”

“Hello,” Rio says uneasily. They're all officers, but she's pretty sure an officer lying shirtless with a bottle of beer in one hand and cards in the other does not require or want a salute.

“How come you get a girl and all I've got is a bottle?” Lefty demands.

“That's not true,” the one named Bandito says. “You got your hand.”

“Hey, hey, come on,” Strand says sharply. “There's a lady present.”

“Looks like a GI,” Bandito says, but adds, “Sorry, miss.”

“Bunch of savages,” Strand says, disapproving but not angry. He leads Rio to a plank seat as far from the game as they can get. It's not privacy, but it's the closest thing available on the ship.

“I was just going to write you tonight,” Rio says.

“How have you been?”

“About as well as can be expected,” Rio says, but then flashes a smile. “We were supposed to ship out weeks ago. The usual hurry up and wait. But I'm a whole lot better now.”

He reaches for her hand, and she takes his.

“Isn't that cute?” Lefty says.

“Shut up, you apes. This is my girl. From back home. We grew up together.”

Bandito is on the verge of letting go with a crude line but thinks better of it and contents himself with looking at the gambling stakes, saying, “Okay, who hasn't anted up?”

There's “a girl,” and then there's “a girl from back home,” a much more revered status.

Bandito says, “So is it true that Fish is captain of the football team, homecoming king, and all-around hero back in, where is it, Fish? Getwell Flails?”

“Gedwell Falls, smart-ass,” Strand says tolerantly. “Fish. That's my call sign.”

When Rio looks baffled, Choke, the oldest of the men at twenty-six, says, “He dived into the river to . . . um . . . Anyway, we call him Fish. Miss.”

Rio is pretty sure there's an off-color story behind the dive into a river.

“I fold. Come on, guys, let's take a walk,” Lefty says. “Give Fish some privacy.” In a few seconds they are alone in a lifeboat beneath a canvas tarp, sitting on hard wooden planks.

“So. How's air corps life, Lieutenant?” Rio asks.

“It's fine,” he says. “How's army life, Private?”

“Cramped and smelly,” Rio says.

“Couple more days until we get to England. Then we'll have room.”

“Do you know where you'll be stationed?”

He shakes his head. “Just somewhere in England. Then it's more training while we wait for our planes to catch up. Then I suppose we'll be escorting bombers over Hitlerville. You?”

She shrugs. “They don't tell us much. But more training in England, for certain. Then who knows? I guess we're not going to liberate France right away. Some people say we'll head to Italy, others say no, we're going to North Africa. Some think it's all a clever ruse and we're really going straight on around the bottom of Africa to kill Japs.”

He looks troubled. “So you're going through with this?”

“Going through with what?”

“With playing soldier.”

Rio is struck dumb for a long minute. “I . . . I don't
think I'm playing, Strand.”

He leans toward her and now gathers both her hands in his. “Of course you're not, you know what I mean. Come on, you must have noticed by now that this is not a game for girls.”

Her hands are limp and unresponsive in his. “Well, actually, I haven't noticed that, no. At basic we had a lot of girls wash out as physically unfit, but I didn't wash out and neither did Jenou or Cat.”

Strand releases his grip only to wave off her reply. “Rio, is this really what you want? I heard those GIs up there talking to you and Jenou.”

“Is that what they were doing? Talking?”

“Well, what do you expect? You're a beautiful girl on a ship full of . . . of . . . rambunctious”—he sighs in relief at having found a safe word—“men and barely men.”

Rio does not overlook the use of the word
beautiful
. She files it away for later enjoyment.

“Strand, even if I wanted out, that's not the way it works.” She waves her hands down her front to indicate her uniform. “I'm in the army. I would go to prison if I tried to leave. You must know that.”

He starts to argue, realizes she's right, and settles for a lame, “I just don't want you to be hurt.”

“I don't want you to be hurt either.”

He shakes his head ruefully. “This stupid war. FUBAR.”

On that they agree. Rio moves the conversation to safer topics, but as they talk of home and mutual acquaintances they are moving, by incremental shifts of weight, ever closer. Neither acknowledges it when their knees come to touch, but they chat on, though with voices newly weighed down by feelings that rise from within. Surprising feelings, to Rio, unsettling feelings. She wants to touch his face. She wants to push her fingers through his hair and . . .

It's the suddenness of desire that unnerves her. She's thought about him often during the long weeks of training. Being around loud, unruly men has not soured her on men, at least not on this one. But every part of her relationship with Strand has been like this: sudden. And now she wants him to stop talking and saying stupid things and kiss her.

She wants him to kiss her, and now as he goes on and on, she's thinking more and more about just doing it herself. She could, couldn't she? No. No, no, that isn't done. Girls do not make the first move.

But why? Surely he wants to kiss her and is just being a gentleman. Surely he'll enjoy it. After all, he must be . . . rambunctious . . . too.

Her fingers twitch, her hands move, but she stops herself. He'll be shocked. He'll think all this army stuff has changed her.

Maybe it has.

“Do you think your friends will be back soon?” she asks, interrupting him in midsentence.

“What? Oh, um . . . I suppose so.”

“Mmm. It's nice having a little privacy, even if it won't last long.” This is not subtle. It takes him a while to figure it out, and when he does she sees that slight shock, that slight note of disapproval on his face. But she doesn't care.

“Are you . . . Do you . . . ?” Strand asks.

At that she loses patience, leans into him, tilts her head, and leaves him with no practical choice but to kiss her. She doesn't make the first contact, so she has deniability; she hasn't quite become a hussy, but she has at last made her desires clear.

It is a very nice kiss. It lasts several seconds, and then Strand pulls back. But Rio is not done. She does not pull away. She remains so close that he cannot possibly mistake her intentions. This time when their lips meet it is with open mouths, and her hand does push through his hair. He knocks the service cap from her head and she puts her other hand behind his neck and he covers her cheek with his hand. He slides over to sit beside her, never breaking contact, eyes closed. His tongue is in her mouth and a sound like an animal growl somehow comes from her, a sound she has never even imagined making before,
and an answering sound in a deeper register comes from him, and now hands are going to places only Rio has ever touched and—

“Knock, knock.” It's Lefty's voice. To drive home the point he raps his knuckles on the side of the boat. “Permission to come aboard.”

“Oh sure, of course, um—” Strand says.

“Yes, we aren't . . . yes,” Rio manages.

Lefty's face appears above the gunwale. “I see you're discussing war strategy,” he says flatly.