Things Left Unsaid by Susan Balnek-Ballard “It ain’t whether you win or lose...it’s how you play the game!” “Yeah, sure, Dad,” the soldier murmured to himself, shivering, rocking his slim body methodically as cold rain poured down on him, drenching him to the bone. Yet he sought no better cover. Water streamed off his net covered helmet, down the back of his light-weight field jacket. The misery he felt inside was more than a match for his physical discomfort. He leaned tighter into the brick wall at his back, trying his damnedest to melt into the crumbling facade. He hid his head in the arc of one arm and answered his own doubts, whispering them into the muffled comfort of his arms, then crying them out into the unforgiving darkness. “I played the game! I played it right! We lost, Dad! We fuckin’ lost and it did matter! It did!” The soldier’s tears were lost as he raised his face into the rain, and his voice was again a whisper. “I played it right, Dad...we all did, but goddamn it...they didn’t! There are suppose to be rules! You lied to me! You lied! There ain’t no rules and it does matter!” Caje stepped closer and hunkered down. He knew how Kirby was feeling, understood perfectly. He’d been there and was there now, but his pain, his rage was controlled. Kirby, on the other hand, was on the ragged edge of despair. Even his observant friend, the Cajun scout, had never seen him in such a state. It was Kirby who reached out to Caje, his thin face suffused with confusion. He touched the other man’s sleeve, yet resisted being drawn against Caje’s chest. He resented the comfort it would’ve brought. Kirby pulled back into the loneliness of a self-inflicted shell. “It was nobody’s fault, Kirby. Nobody’s. You don’t go blamin’ yourself.” “I ain’t blamin’ myself, Caje! But it’s all a lie. Everything we learned at home. Nothin’s right out here. They just don’t play by the rules. It ain’t fair!” Caje shook his head. “Nothin’s fair our here. Nobody said it was gonna be. Sarge...he told you that first day back in England before D-Day...he told us...make your own rules. Make ‘em ones you can live by. Do what you know’s right. War can kill your body, but that’s not the worst it can do. War can kill your soul, and that is the worst.” “That kinda thinkin’ didn’t help Sarge! Did it? Did it, Caje?! Not the Sarge nor Doc neither.” Kirby’s voice grew shrill and Caje had no answer to the question. He offered advice instead. “Let it go, Kirby. This...the way you’re takin’ this...it won’t change a thing. It won’t....” “But it stinks, Caje! It’s rotten - Sarge played it straight - right from wrong, good from bad.” Kirby slammed an open palm against the stock of the BAR he gripped with pale knuckled intensity in his left hand and sighed deeply, raggedly, the warm exhaled breath in the chill air a bit of inner self, a visible piece of a tormented soul, lost now, forever, just a piece, infinitesimal but irreplaceable. Sergeant Saunders made a radical misjudgment - a grievous error. Basically he trusted human nature to be just that, human. He always believed he understood how people’s minds worked, didn’t necessarily agree, that was a certainty, but understood. He believed and picked the worst possible time to be proven wrong. Doc was hit. The unarmed medic, helmet clearly marked with a red cross on its white background, had not been wounded by a misdirected grenade as he tended the dying soldier - nor by a piece of debris thrown by the impact of any far distant artillery. Methodically, mechanically, the German corporal had followed the medic’s actions. With the youngster in the sites of his Mauser, he pre-meditatedly squeezed off the round that tore into the young man’s shoulder and knocked him, helmetless now, defenseless, over his patient and into the water-filled shell crater beyond. His strangled cry yanked Saunders around, drew his full attention, and with calculated action, he gained his feet, spraying machine gun fire toward the dug-in enemy and made for Doc. The sergeant, experienced, old beyond his 28 years, suddenly threw the blanket of caution aside, relying on instinct alone to get him to Doc. He made it, pulling the wounded soldier up and out of the murky water, slinging his Thompson and opting to drag Doc down the length of narrow trench and out to where the lieutenant and Kirby were already aware of the situation. The pair waited to cover him with their own barrage of gunfire. The German corporal watched and waited. The unarmed medic had been an easy target, not especially exciting, but a sergeant now, that was a different matter. His breath came in tiny puffs and blood roared in his ears. What he felt as he followed Saunders’ painstaking passage from one cratered end of the trench to the other, dragging Doc slowly along, knowing it was only a matter of moments before he got his chance to finish the two GIs, was anticipation he’d known only rarely. And the final satisfaction, when it came, was a pure physical release. Groaning softly in pleasure, the corporal caressed the trigger of the rifle, careful to squeeze and not jerk the shot off. The bullet impacted squarely into Saunders’ back, and he crumpled down over Doc and lay still. Kirby pivoted the BAR toward the direction he knew the bullet had come and felt his own surge of satisfaction when he raked the German’s position, neatly taking away part of the foliage covered embankment and, not surprisingly, the German corporal behind it. Kirby didn’t gloat or pause to savor the moment. Before the Lieutenant could react or forbid the action, Kirby was on his feet, firing the automatic rifle with dizzying accuracy and speed. Throwing himself forward the last yards, he reached Saunders and Doc. The medic was already dead when Kirby rolled Sarge off the warm body and felt for the pulse. But Saunders was alive. Kirby pulled the soldier up onto his lap and held the blonde head tightly against his chest with one hand. Saunders was strangely still. The pale blue eyes seemed to mirror exactly what Kirby was feeling - vulnerability, fear and somehow, in spite of everything, a sense of innocence. So Saunders was just a man after all - young and scared, like Kirby. Suddenly there were no rules. Men shot unarmed men - shot men in the back and lost no sleep over it, had no insidious nightmares like he’d had so many times. Men came without honor and without guilt. They came without souls and Kirby and Saunders and Caje and Doc and Hanley wore no armor against them. Here there was no God. But retribution could be swift and final and usually was. “Pull back! Pull back!” Hanley’s familiar voice reached him over the cacophony of noise and snapped Kirby away from his thoughts. “Medic! I need a medic over here!” he screamed. In his arms Saunders shuddered and reached a hand out toward Doc’s lifeless body, crumbled just out of reach. He strained to reach, fingers clenching and unclenching, lips forming words that remained unspoken. Kirby grabbed the hand and folded it back across the sergeant’s chest. “He’s gone, Sarge. Let ‘im go.” And Hanley was there. “Pull back, Kirby...dammit! Let’s go! Leave Doc. We’ll get him later. Let’s go!” Hooking fingers into Saunders’ jacket, Hanley began to drag the injured soldier back. Covering them with his BAR, Kirby and the officer slowly made their way toward the rear, an inch, a foot, a yard at a time. Machine gun fire kicked up clumps of mud and vegetation, showering them with tiny clods. Far enough back to be out of the still-advancing Germans’ line of fire, Hanley passed the BAR man his M1 and shouldered Saunders. The pair began to pick up speed, zigzagging, moving until their breaths whined in their ears and there was no space between the rapid beating of their hearts. Safe for the time being behind their own lines, Hanley lay Saunders down. Kirby anxiously watched while the Lieutenant felt for a pulse, then listened carefully with an ear against the sergeant’s chest. “He’s got a pulse, but he’s barely breathing. Find a medic, Kirby. Make it fast!” Leaving Hanley’s M1 behind, Kirby bolted up and was gone. Frantic, he searched each pocket of soldiers, his face terrible in its fear and determination and disappointment at each shake of the head - each “no medic here, pal.” Saunders was bleeding heavily, in shock, non-responsive. Losing hope and heart, finally Kirby stumbled upon a medic. The guy already had his hands full, but Kirby’s desperation got to him, and he passed an uninjured GI a bandage with instructions, “wrap this guy’s arm tight. I’ll be back.” Grabbing up his bag, the medic ran after the disappearing private. Kirby dropped down beside the Lieutenant and watched the medic do what he was paid seventy-five bucks a month for - his best to save a life. He spoke in monosyllables and only when he needed something out of his bag, or an extra hand to hold up a bottle of plasma. Finally he rocked back on his heels and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Think he might make it.” The voice was softly accented, Texas maybe or Oklahoma, Kirby thought, and the face, like their own Doc’s had been, was too young, too full of a gentle naiveté to be out here. But here he was. Here he’d stay until the job was done. Like Doc. The medic stripped off his own jacket and lay it across the shivering Saunders’ back and shoulders. He wore only a shirt beneath and a thin cotton tee-shirt. Kirby laid down the BAR and pulled off his jacket, passing it to the surprised medic. “Take it, Doc. I ain’t cold. Got a sweater on.” The medic’s tired face creased into a grin and he nodded. “Thanks.” Kirby never heard the bullet when it hit. He only saw the effect. The medic’s wide gray eyes rounded in surprise. His mouth dropped open before he pitched forward across Saunders, a hole appearing, perfectly centered, between those same gray eyes. Howling with rage, Kirby grabbed up the Browning and sprayed the tree line behind him and above. The German sniper fell to the ground, his body torn, his life spent. His war, Doc’s and the medics, over. The Lieutenant’s hand on Kirby’s shoulder woke the private, and he jerked his head up, eyes still bloodshot from crying, cheeks still damp from rain and mingled tears he hadn’t realized he’d shed. “Time to leave, Kirby...and there’s some news. Saunders is gonna make it. He’s doing a lot better this morning...a whole lot better.” Hanley smiled one of his rare, welcome smiles. Nothing had really changed. There still weren’t any rules out here and how you played the game still didn’t matter, but somehow, the darkness wasn’t quite as absolute, and Dad wasn’t really to blame for his son’s confusion. How was Dad to know, after all. He hadn’t really lied. He just hadn’t known how it was out here, and Kirby wouldn’t be the one to tell him. Some things were best left unsaid. Copyright 1992 - Susan Balnek-Ballard. All rights reserved.