Twilight by Susan M. Ballard Combat Fan Fiction

Tricks

by

Susan Balnek-Ballard

Billy Nelson was just a kid - not quite dry behind the ears, a lover of baseball, apple pie, Mom and all things American. That’s the reason he’d enlisted the minute he’d turned 18. That was the reason he’d fought against his own inner terrors against those greater ones of which he was well aware, even at such a young age - the inhuman and horrific war of aggression now being waged world wide.

Today Billy Nelson’s mind was not on his own inner turmoil. Today was a fine autumn day, cool breezes whipping up the dry leaves from the ground, swirling them around and about the feet of the young soldier and his companion as the two sat, taking their ease against a low stone wall. Puffy clouds scuttled rapidly across an azure sky. Billy broke the pleasant silence.

“Days like this remind me of home. All that’s missin’ is the smell of leaves burnin’.”

“Burnin’ leaves and acres of pumpkins, acres and acres of ‘em, all layin’ between rows of corn stubble, ready for pickin’. And all the little kids comin’ to the farm, waitin’ their turns up on the hay wagon for a ride out to the fields to pick their own. I can still see old Red, a big strawberry Roan, ears all pricked up, waitin’ to be hitched to the wagon, stompin’ his big ole feet, just as excited as the kids. Red got extra pats those days and maybe an apple or two. Seems so long ago, Billy.” Littlejohn replaced the chewed match stick between his teeth, folded his arms behind his head and leaned back, eyes hooded by his helmet, peering up into the sky.

“I’d a really liked to be there, Littlejohn. I’d a picked a tall skinny pumpkin. They make the best jack o-lanterns - the scariest ones - big long open mouths...look like they’re screamin’!" Billy opened his mouth forming it into a semblance of his remembered jack o’lantern mouth and let out a low, soulful “whooooooo.”

“I woulda let you have the biggest pumpkin in the field, too, Billy.” Littlejohn nodded at the thought. “The best one,” he added.

“Well, thanks, Littlejohn!” Billy gave his big companion a friendly swipe on the arm, continuing, “We usta get our pumpkins at the corner grocery. Not much choice but you could get a pretty neat one if you went the day the truck brought ‘em in.” Billy’s eyes sparkled at the memories, so clear and real. “But what I miss most is goin’ trick or treatin’. Mostly I’d just dress up in my Pop’s old clothes. Once though, I was a World War I flying ace! My uncle was in the Air corps back then and he let me borrow his stuff. Just once ‘cause Timmy Harrigan pushed me into the pond behind Miller’s Bakery and that wet wool stunk pretty bad, sorta like moth balls and old dog.”

Littlejohn laughed out loud and Billy joined him. War seemed far away, so very far.

Nelson suddenly became serious. He leaned forward, staring off into space. He drew his knees up and rested his elbows there, drumming his fingertips together as he thought.

“Ya know, Littlejohn, I can almost taste the Hershey bars and Mary Janes all chewy and kinda nutty and the Black Jack chewing gum old Mrs. Ratzenburger handed out every single Halloween long as I can remember.”

Littlejohn swallowed back the saliva that came along with Billy’s sweet conjured up memories.

“Say, Littlejohn, do you think the kids around here ever had a Halloween or went trick or treatin’ or anything? Do they do that over here or just in America?” “Let’s do it! Let’s give ‘em Halloween!”

Billy sprang to his feet, energized, elated, full of enthusiasm.

Yessiree - we can do it, Littlejohn! We can get stuff from all the guys in Company - chocolate bars, gum, stuff from home.”

Caught up in Billy’s exuberance, Littlejohn added “Yeah, we can even talk to the cook. Maybe he could get his guys to make some cookies or sandwiches or somethin’!” The big man’s face expressed the contagious enthusiasm he’d caught from his buddy. He too jumped to his feet laughing.

“It’s gettin’ close now, though Billy. It’s October 23rd. already! We’re gonna have to get a move on."

“Let’s do it!” Billy answered, stooping down to grab up his rifle and helmet. “We can start at the top - ask Lieutenant Hanley. He’s always a soft touch!” Nelson didn’t wait to hear Littlejohn’s muffled, “Sure, soft touch,” as the tall soldier trotted off after the rapidly disappearing Billy.

For the solid week spent in the relative safety of Company, headquartered in a small Belgian town, the two men collected treats. Their excitement was as catching as a cold. All the men helped out, even the usually self-centered, mostly grouchy William G. Kirby.

Sergeant Saunders couldn’t have asked for a better morale booster. The mood of the men was almost festive as they planned the party that would introduce several dozen hollow-eyed, fearful children to a favorite and treasured American event - Halloween.

So it happened that on the day before Halloween, the very eve before, known in the U.S. as Beggar’s Night, that Saunders found himself a beggar of sorts. He stood in the tiny clearing next to the towering Littlejohn, whose head rested down against his chest, shoulders rounded and body shaking. Saunders stood there and pleaded to God, begged, for the life of Billy Nelson. Where Littlejohn was wracked with grief, Saunders was filled with anger, anger that bordered on a sort of madness. His body shook, but with rage. He wanted to scream out his hatred for this war and what it made people do. It had been a sniper who’d picked Billy out of the squad, had targeted him with heartless disregard for age or rank or gentleness of nature or how much he loved or was loved....

Awkwardly, Saunders laid a hand on Littlejohn’s arm and squeezed gently, just to let the PFC know he was there, that he knew. Littlejohn raised his chin up off his chest for a moment as he acknowledged the sergeant’s presence. The chin fell back onto the broad chest and the big man turned away, but he held his ground. He wouldn’t leave the clearing until he knew, until Doc was finished, until he could help carry the stretcher, until he knew.

Saunders had to be content to do his screaming within the solitude of his mind. He screamed in that place until he thought his head would burst. He wished it would so the pain would stop.

Propped up with great care in his bed, Billy Nelson, extremely weak and pale; in pain and against Doctor’s orders, presided over the squad’s Halloween party, a week late perhaps, but the party would go on.

All day the men had decorated the small church being used as the field hospital. Gauzy ghosts made of bandaging floated and swayed on the soft breezes wafting through the airy building. The ghosts had faces that smiled and their expressions were friendly, not frightening for children who might not be able to differentiate between the goosebumpy frights of fantasy and the real fears of their every day lives.

Black cats cut from cardboard boxes and painted with shoe polish arched their backs and stared out from the silliest places. Bales of hay were stacked outside for ambiance and even a real pumpkin joined his paper brothers in fascinating and captivating the children. Okay, so the pumpkin wasn’t an actual pumpkin. It had been liberated from an outlying farm and was a huge squash of some sort, a great yellowish-orange roundish thing. It had been delightfully carved by the Company artist, a former stone carver from Vermont. He brought to the vegetable a life of its own, with the face of an angel, all done with the delicacy that only a true artist could accomplish using the tools at hand, including a scalpel and an array of dental picks. No tricks here, only treats.

Solemn children filed silently into the well lit church/hospital, their small pinched faces transformed with surprise and then joy as they discovered each new cat or ghost or jack o-lantern and smelled the food the cooks had prepared and laid out onto a plank table.

When the last of the buttered bread was devoured; the last cookie eaten, it was time. Each child received a small brown bag and each was directed to file past Billy Nelson’s bed. As the bag was held out, a treat was dropped into it by each member of King Company. Mouths opened in awe and wonder and closed again just as quickly as a sweet found its way home. The children were still quiet, this was church after all and a hospital too, but there were smiles on their faces and in their hearts.

But the best treat of all, the most memorable one, for Hanley, Saunders, Littlejohn and the squad, was the expression on Billy Nelson’s wan face. It was priceless. He was transfused with an absolute peace and complete happiness.

“We did it, huh, Littlejohn?” he whispered, eyes moving from the children to the giant who crouched at his bedside.

Littlejohn nodded, smiling. “We sure did, buddy. We did it.”

And Sergeant Saunders found that within his own mind and within his own heart, the screams were silenced, replaced with that very same peace that had found its way into this tiny bubble of space, isolated for a moment from war and hate.