Free Articles of War by Nick Arvin Page B

Heck carried over toward the fire and handed to someone, who gave him an empty one in return, and so this went on. Heck soon lost track of how many helmets and buckets he had carried forward and back. His injured leg began to throb painfully with each step, but the pain seemed of little consequence and he continued carrying water despite the fact that the bucket brigade was obviously having a negligible effect on the fire and it seemed that everyone in the house had now been evacuated.
    Suddenly someone gripped Heck by the shoulder and spun him around. It was the thin little medical officer he had spoken to earlier, and Heck sloshed half a bucket of water over him. The officer yelled, “The hell are you doing?” He took the bucket from Heck’s hands. “Let it burn. That’s the last truck. Get out of here.”
    In the dark in the back of the truck Heck could see little of his companions. A pair of men on stretchers were slung up along one side. Others sat on the floor or on a bench along the opposite side. Heck pressed himself into a place between two warm, stinking bodies on the floor. The truck lurched forward, back, then forward again. Cold notes of wind hissed through the seams of the canvas shell around them.
    The remainder of the night passed in a discomfort of bumping and pitching. Groans surrounded him, but quieted over time. Eventually Heck sensed more light, and peering out the back of the truck he saw a red sun coming up behind them. How the others could doze and sleep through the violence of the ride Heck did not understand. They were a filthy, mangled lot, and Heck had to suppose he looked no better himself. But they were moving away from the fighting, and recalling this created an irrepressible, lifting relief.

3.
    A PRETTY NURSE WITH BLOODSHOT EYES ESCORTED HECK INTO a large brick warehouse. Its great open space had been converted into a hospital with rooms separated by curtains and crude wooden walls. In each room eight to a dozen men rested on narrow beds arranged with just enough passage between them for doctors and nurses to perform their duties. From where Heck was placed he could reach in either direction and touch the shoulder of a neighbor. The warehouse ceiling soared high over the makeshift walls of the hospital, so every sound echoed in that high open dim space and the disquiet of suffering resonated as if in a cathedral. Nonetheless, Heck had hardly slept in the past two nights and now he slept.
    He was woken by a doctor with an enormous, block-shaped head. He gave Heck’s leg a cursory inspection, talked through a drooping, unruly mustache. “Who sent you here? This should have been taken care of at the unit aid station. They should have put a few sutures in this and bandaged it and kicked you back toward the krauts. I don’t want you here taking up a bed with a scrape like that.”
    â€œYes sir,” Heck said. “The station was on fire, sir.”
    â€œNothing else wrong with you? No trench foot? No pain in your kidneys? Headaches? No combat fatigue?”
    â€œNo sir.”
    The doctor snorted, horselike, and made a note on his clipboard.
    Again Heck slept. He was woken by an orderly peeling the bandage off his leg. Seeing him awake, the orderly said, “How’d you do this?”
    â€œI don’t know. I think I just fell down.”
    The orderly laughed. “Well, you’re a lucky one. Put a few stitches in there, watch you a little while to make sure there’s no infection, and get you back into the Grand Tour. How’s that sound?”
    â€œAll right,” Heck said, although he felt small desire to be in fighting shape again. The shots of anesthetic put in before the stitches turned out to be the most painful aspect of his wounding. The stitches were sewn in where he lay.
    He remained for two nights in the hospital ward, and he observed that most surgeries were conducted in a separate, curtained room, and the sallow-eyed