Good days weren’t ever truly good. They came laced with small miracles, and battles fought and sometimes lost. And no matter how well a flight went, there was always the possibility that we wouldn’t make it through the rest of the day or through the night. Sofinewas all we got. And fine I would take, because it was a gift that I got to say it at all.
I drifted off to sleep then with the hope that tomorrow would be fine as well, the distant sound of gunfire like a lullaby in the background.
3
I woke toa scream and sat up, my face hitting the net that had sagged in the night under the weight of the humidity.
“Get it out!” someone screeched from the other side of the barracks. “Help!”
In the dim lighting I watched for a moment the scuffle to catch a rat with a shoe and a box and then lay back down and rolled over. Rats were common visitors, especially when the river rose. And, by the sound of the rain battering the canvas roof above me, it most likely had. The rats, pushed from their homes, came looking for a dry spot to harbor in. Mosquito nets weren’t just for bugs, they were also supposed to keep the rats out of our beds. Most of the time it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
The next time I woke it was due to my bed shaking. Squinting in the sliver of light shining through one of the plastic windows someone had exposed an inch of, I shoved my netting aside and leaned over to look at the woman below me.
“You just get in?” I asked, taking in Tilly’s haggard appearance through her own net.
Her skin had a yellow tinge from the Atabrine, the medicine we took to keep from getting malaria, and there was a faint smear of blood in her wispy blond hair that she’d probably tried to wash out but hadn’t done a good job of in her haste to get to her bed to sleep. We were always in a state of mostly clean. Water conditions could change in the blink of an eye. Sometimes the shower was too hot, sometimes too cold. Never something you wanted to stand and luxuriate in. And a lot of times it was just two to three women sharing a bowl of water to splash over our faces and under our armpits with a little bit of soap. It was only when we had to keep soldiers alive that anyone cared about our cleanliness. And only our hands at that.
Tilly yawned and nodded.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“Fine,” she said.
Fine.
I nodded, not needing to imagine the ravaged faces and bodies I knew she’d seen, or hear the wailing and moaning and blistering tirades she’d heard. I knew them only too well. All while the plane we’d boarded shook and rattled and threatened to succumb to the gunfire and bombs discharging nearby, making us wonder if we’d make it out alive physically, mentally, and emotionally—the damage to our minds and hearts possibly too great.
And yet I did it without complaint, even thriving on it. If I thought they’d allow it, I’d ask to be sent out twice a day, the job not so much a calling as a deep-seated need to try and make amends for something I knew I wasn’t responsible for, but felt guilty about regardless.
“You out again today?” Tilly asked, her blinks getting longer.
“Yeah.”
“Stay safe, buddy.”
“I’ll do my best, buddy.”
She was asleep then and I rolled onto my back once more and stared between the netting to the ceiling. My body ached from head to toe. I was stronger than I’d ever been, but my skeleton felt bruised. My bones weary. And yet I pushed myself up, pulled the netting free of my mattress, and hopped down to the floor to do it all over again.
“You taking me in?” I asked an hour later as I entered the little building sitting at the edge of the runway.
At the front desk was Gus, one of the dozen or so pilots I’d flown with since landing on Espiritu Santo four months ago. Gus was what the younger men called seasoned. He was older, wiser, and didn’t take crap from anyone. A man of few words, he was incredibly efficient, and the rumors about him were numerous. Feats of bravery, men he’d saved... He never admitted to any of it, but there was a look in his soulful brown eyes. A sadness I’d seen in others who had experienced what was considered courage, but wore on a human soul. Regardless of what he had or hadn’t done, whenever I flew with him, I felt safe. There was a quality about him that reminded me of a dad. Not my father, who’d never been anything but cold and standoffish. But someone’s dad. And the kind of dad I’d always wished I’d had.
“It’s you and me, kid,” Gus said before grabbing a clipboard and heading out to do a last check of the plane transporting us. “See you onboard.”
The flight in was easy. I sat in my seat, eyes closed, arms wrapped around my torso as the plane rose and the temperature dropped. I dozed for most of the trip, waking every now and then as we hit a pocket of air that set the empty bunks rattling, and then as we entered the war zone, Gus doing his best to dodge bullets that had missed their mark and were zipping our way.
But we landed safely and he laughed as he always did when he swung open the big door to let me out and I squinted in the bright light after napping for two hours.
“Watch your step,” he said as I tripped over a rock.
“Shut up,” I said, making him laugh harder.
“See you soon, sunshine,” he called after me.
The hospital was swarming with doctors and nurses, the smells and sights enough to make one’s stomach turn. There were seeping wounds and bandaged body parts every which way I looked.
“Morning, Lieutenant. Gonna be a doozy of a transport today.”
