“Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
-Douglas MacArthur
The silence inside the tent was palpable. Despite the presence of several bodies, clustered together in a tight space with barely enough room to stand, the realest presence coming from it all was the dead air. It was like a cold wind that had entered the place and chosen to stay, chilling everyone inside to their bones.
He pushed back the flap and stepped inside. He saw Majorca and Whitman sitting across from each other, medics checking them as they sat motionless on the edge of their cots. Watkins wasn’t far away, laid out and half-asleep alongside his platoon mates. Here and there, he spotted the semi-familiar faces of replacements that had joined First Platoon in his absence, and the few that had been around since his time and made it through this latest fight alive.
Whitman’s head was hanging forward. The medic at his side checking his BP and running a flashlight over his eyes. No one seemed to notice his presence yet, so he made a point of announcing himself.
“Hey Billy. Doc find any brain damage yet?”
Whitman looked up, his tired eyes pulling focus after being temporarily blinded by a pen light. “Dezba, you Apache warrior motherfucker…” His voice was tired and subdued, barely able to get the lovely ethnic slur out. From his bunk, Majorca snapped out of his own fugue state and stood. They came together and exchanged hugs and pats on the shoulder.
“Sorry we didn’t get to catch up earlier. Lot of shit going down and all.”
“Holy shit, you have no idea,” Majorca said. “I never imagined we’d be seeing you at the end of it.”
“Yeah, I was pretty convinced we were going to buy it there for awhile.”
“What happened to Saunders? She looked white as a ghost when you guys brought her in.”
“Took some blunt trauma from an explosion,” Majorca replied. “We got hit pretty hard by some LAV’s and a Abrams.”
“Yeah, before or after we got strafed by a plane and two fucking choppers,” Whitman added. Dezba could tell from his tone that there was no humor implied. In truth, his old driver sounded on the verge of tears.
He already knew what the answer would be to his next question, but he had to ask. The memory of the men he had served with demanded some acknowledgement.
“And Mill… and Jones?”
Whitman and Majorca exchanged a look. What little energy they still had left was suddenly sucked clean. Still, he had to know.
“Uh, you remember those LAV’s we mentioned?” Marjorca asked. Dezba nodded. “Jones was wounded, Mill was carrying him. They both got hit.”
“Sarge nearly bought it too there. Grayson saved her ass.”
Dezba closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. Part of himself was to sure ask if he was satisfied that he now knew. Asking couldn’t be helped, but neither could the guilt he now felt.
“Soon as we get out of here…” he whispered, “we’ll get to Grizzly’s pub, raise a glass for them. And everybody else.”
“Damn straight.” Majorca put his fist in the middle and received bumps from the other two. Dezba looked behind him to see the others, wondering if they might be watching and feeling left out.
For better of for worse, they were all a unit now, forced together by common circumstances and tragedy. They would remain that way until command broke them up, if they so chose. But given the terrible losses felt all around, he was sure Watkins and his crew would be absorbed into First. That meant when it came to toast the fallen, they would all be doing it together.
He hoped ol’ Grizzly’s was still in operation, otherwise there would be a lot of pissed off and angry former customers.
“What about the LT, where’s he?” asked Whitman. Dezba turned back to him, a look of mild confusion on his face.
“Last I heard he was being debriefed by the Colonel. Why? He not come back?”
“No,” said Majorca. “Nobody’s been around to debrief us, either. Last we heard, we were getting some kind of unit commendation for our retrieval of you-know-who. But that was it…”
“Yeah, we don’t even have anybody in charge now, from the looks of it.”
Dezba turned around. He wasn’t sure why, but the thought of being without a platoon leader made him feel the need to survey the ranks before him. It was strange, just how lost once could suddenly feel in lieu of a commanding officer. Was he worried command would now fall to him? Or was this just a feeling of free floating anxiety on behalf of his missing friend? Obviously, Braun’s situation took precedence, but he couldn’t deny the other question either.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” he said, coming back around to face Whitman and Majorca. “You know how the Colonel is, always dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.”
“You don’t understand. The LT basically broke ranks in order to put us back in town. We were behind him on it, but we’re all thinking the Colonel might try to court-martial him for this.”
“Or worse,” added Whitman. “That fucker’s had it in for this unit from the get-go.”
Dezba felt a sudden cold feeling come over him. This was the first he was hearing about any insubordination on the LT’s part. Given what the articles of military justice were like these days, the complete absence of an independent judiciary or Judge Advocate General’s office, Haynes could do just about anything to Braun and not fear reprecussions.
“The Mage though… he’s alive right? He could step in to save our boy, couldn’t he?”
“Yeah, but he’s in intensive care,” said Whitman. “Scuttle-butt is he’s in a coma and no one knows when he’ll be up and about again.”
“Face it man, Haynes is in charge for the foreseeable future. We’re all his bitches now.”
The feeling got worse. Dezba’s innards were slowly turning to ice as the ugly specter of being under the leadership of that unforgiving psychopath spread over him. He expected things would change drastically in the next few months. For however long it took the Mage to recover, assuming he ever did.
“God help us all!” he said, and meant it.
