by Diana Hunter
And more came on. From her left, a fresh troop of Union soldiers made their way between the cannon that fired over their heads and headed into the stalks. The slight rise of the land where she stood gave her a clear view of another troop, this one wearing Confederate gray, doing the same thing.
The two sides met near the middle on the Union side. Shots were exchanged, bayonets “used” and not one of them came out of the cornfield. All went down, “killed” by either gunshot, bayonet, knife or cannon fire. Cannon that did not distinguish between friend and foe in this hell of a battle.
She had to look elsewhere. The tightness in her chest was making it difficult to breathe. Or was it the smoke? No, that had drifted as the breeze changed direction. Instead of watching men die, she chose one of the cannon crew to watch, their graceful ballet of movement giving lie to their deadly actions.
One man called out commands and each of the crew snapped into place, executing the commands with precision. The whole affair looked automated and Lauren wondered, if there were real mini balls flying at them, would they be so calm?
The group next to them moved faster, the gunner in charge calling his commands with urgency. Lauren frowned as she watched. This group’s actions definitely looked sloppier. This group didn’t show the same grace, the same calm as the cannonneers on her left. They hurried their task, as if they wanted to get as many shots off as they could before…before what? Lunch? Lauren shook her head, reminding herself this was only playacting. No matter how into it some of these guys seemed to get, this wasn’t war.
The reminder served to assuage some of the panic that kept her chest tight even as the noise continued to assail her senses. The deep bass of the cannon booms, the lighter tenor of the rifle pops, the mixed tones of the dead and dying. The hills multiplied every sound, sending the echoes back to join fresh concussions, fresh screams.
She couldn’t stop watching the men around the cannon, comparing the two groups’ styles. Focusing on their technique helped her deal with the PTSD. Which manner would be more likely in a real battle? Probably the one on her right. Moving too fast, fighting the panic, wanting to run, wanting to knock the snot out of the enemy.
She saw the accident happen. She was looking right at the man with the sponge on the end of his pole when he rammed it down the bore too quickly following the man who’d wormed out the barrel. She saw him step wrong, his body partly in front of the cannon’s mouth. He’d done it once before and she’d seen the commander warn him on it.
But time didn’t allow for a second warning. The cannon fired again, sending the ramrod and the soldier’s arm sailing across the cornfield.
He screamed and the moment froze in Lauren’s mind—the soldier behind the cannon, the lanyard still unattached to the vent hole, not yet ready to set for the next charge, the captain, his mouth open, ready to shout a warning that came too late, the others turning to look in horror, the man on the ground, a bloody stump where his arm used to be, writhing in pain.
The scene shifted as time stood still. Sand blew in her eyes as she ran to the Jeep that had been blown upside down. A soldier in khaki, bleeding, his arm gone at the elbow, his face half obliterated…
“Call an ambulance!”
The shout brought her back and Lauren sprang into action, her eyes unblinking, half in one world, half in another. She called out orders as she ran to his side. Pointing at a civilian, she commanded, “Call 9-1-1.” To another, a man on horseback, she yelled, “Stop the battle.”
One person had actually bent down to help the man, trying to hold him down by the shoulders to keep him still. Lauren called to the leader of the organized, still-calm, though shocked group of cannonneers. “I need something to make a tourniquet with. Belt, tie. Now!”
He jumped into action and she bent over the wounded soldier to assess his condition. He was already in shock and she nodded at the man keeping him still. “We need to stop the bleeding before he loses too much blood.”
Someone handed her a thick strip of cotton. The frayed ends showed it had been just torn off something. Lauren didn’t care what. There was precious little of the arm left to tie onto, but there would be enough. Cinching it shut, she called out for a stick and before the words were completely out of her mouth, someone slapped a short metal ramrod into her hand. Twisting with all her might, she cut off the flow of blood.
The man lay silent now, and slowly Lauren realized the entire battlefield had gone quiet. “Check his vitals,” she told the man next to her, not even looking at him.
“Pulse is irregular and thready.”
Someone who knew medicine, she thought as her mind raced. Where was the damn ambulance?
Sirens sounded in the distance as if in answer. “I need a blanket. We need to cover him and keep him warm.”
From somewhere, a scratchy wool blanket settled down over him.
“I’ll take over here.” A man’s hands came down and took hold of the ramrod, keeping the pressure up. Lauren let go, her shoulders aching from the effort.
“Thank you.” She looked around. “Please, everyone…move back. He needs air and the ambulance has to get through.”
The shocked crowd fell back several paces. Then fell back again as a young soldier came running toward her through the crowd, carrying the man’s arm as if it were simply a misplaced piece of equipment. He hurried over and set it down beside her, the white bone jaggedly sticking out, the end bloodied and dead.
“Can you put it back on?”
Lauren looked at him as if he’d gone insane. “Put it back on?” She started to laugh and heard the hysteria in her voice, but no longer had the urge to control it. She stood. “Put it back on? This is war, you idiot. This is what really happens.”
John pushed his way through the crowd, shouting orders. “You on the hill, bring that cooler down here. We need ice. Lots of it.” He’d reached the young soldier and patted him on the back. “Good work. Wrap the arm and get it in the cooler with the ice.”
Lauren snorted. “There’s no point. Too much damage. Too much blood loss.”
“You don’t know that, Lauren. Let the doctors decide.” He reached for her, but she backed away, shaking her head.
“You see what happens when boys play at being soldiers? People die in war. This,” she gestured at the ruined cornfield with a hand covered in blood, “isn’t war. This is a bunch of men dressing up and pretending to be soldiers.” She pointed to the wounded man. “But people die in war. They get hurt, they lose limbs. They die.”
She was making a scene. She knew it. Her mouth, however, kept running away with her as her nerves needed an outlet.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, making a mockery of the real men who died in this war. They fought because they had to. Because their lives were at stake. You shoot off cannon and rifles with no bullets and fall down and pretend you’re dead.” She rounded on the man who could not hear her. “And you get so caught up in it, you find out what real war is, and…and…”
She couldn’t go on. Her voice caught and her eyes filled with tears.
“Lauren,” John put his hands on her shoulders. She shook them off and turned on him once more.
“Go away, John. Just go away.”
Turning, she fled into the crowd.
John stood there, not stunned, not surprised even. Just sad. He’d seen her on the hill and watched her as he made his way back in his retreat from his unit’s foray onto the field. She’d been keeping it together. He even thought he’d seen her smile once or twice.
And then the ramrod had gone flying across the field, followed by its grisly counterpart. How the wooden pole managed not to hit anyone was beyond him, but he’d felt grateful there was only one casualty from the man’s idiocy. Even as he turned to find her, she’d been moving toward the wounded cannonneer, slowly at first and then at a dead run.
The crowd had closed in quickly though, and he’d had to push and bully his way through.
The young man who’d brou
ght the arm—that was what pushed her over the edge. If only he’d seen him coming and stopped him from reaching her, maybe he could’ve prevented Lauren from having such a public meltdown.
Will came to stand beside him. Together they watched Lauren march away. Jill nodded to her husband and followed her.
“This is certainly one hell of a way to start a day.”
John nodded. The ambulance had arrived and the crowd was breaking up. While many still stayed to watch the paramedics do their work, others broke into clumps, discussing what they had and hadn’t seen. A reporter carrying a microphone hurried over to John and Will, cameraman in tow.
“You seemed to be the focus of that woman’s anger. Can you tell us why?” The carefully manicured blonde stuck the microphone in John’s face.
Tempted to swat it out of the way, he only stepped back. “No, I can’t. Please go away.”
“Do you know her? Can you tell us her name?”
John didn’t answer, only turned his back. When the reporter came around, the mic at her mouth to ask him another question, John marched off the field in the same direction as Lauren.
Thankfully, the reporter didn’t follow. The paramedics lifted the gurney into the ambulance at that point and that was a much better image for the camera.
“They’re calling the battle for the morning, John.” Will caught up to him. “Afternoon activities are still going on as planned though.”
John shook his head. “I don’t know. Lauren’s not going to come back and I need to think.”
But when they got to the campground, John still didn’t know what he was going to do. Jill called Will over and the two of them went inside their camper, giving John and Lauren the privacy they needed. With the entire campground still over at the battlefield, the two could shout and holler as much as they wanted.
John stepped into the tent, seeing the sleeping bags neatly rolled and tied, his clothes from yesterday folded and beside his duffle, her knapsack and duffle bag packed and ready to go. She hefted the knapsack and picked up one of the bags.
“I rolled both and then realized you’d need one for tonight. Unless you decide to sleep in Will’s RV.”
“Lauren, you don’t have to leave.”
“Yes, I do.” She pushed past him and into the sunshine. John followed and stood over her.
“What happened this morning was an accident. Over a hundred cannon teams and ninety-nine of them were doing just fine.”
“And one man who no longer has an arm. Statistically insignificant, you’re going to tell me?”
“No.” He’d been about to reach for her, but he let his hands fall to his sides. “No, he’s not statistically insignificant. He’s a wounded soldier—”
She made a noise of dismissal. “Soldier. Play soldier.”
“Soldier,” he corrected. “These men go through a great deal of training before they’re allowed to participate in a national event. They might not operate modern machine guns, but that doesn’t make them any less soldiers.” He heard the anger growing in his voice and tried to bring it down a peg. “Lauren, it was an accident.”
“I watched them, John.” Her voice, quiet and deadly, stayed calm and serious. “I watched them and they weren’t nearly as professional as the group beside them. They were sloppy and careless. He was sloppy and careless. He allowed himself to get caught up in the moment and he paid for it with his right arm. He might pay for it with his life.”
“Men like that are the same in everything they do. He could’ve been painting his house and fallen off a ladder, or working on his car and forgotten to block the wheels.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do this, John. I thought I could. Dr. Butters thought I could. I can’t.”
“You did. And you did beautifully.” This time he did take her in his arms.
She pushed out of them. “Don’t you see? I didn’t. I wasn’t working on that idiot who stood wrong and got his arm blown off. I was working on a soldier, a real soldier, who lost his arm when an IED exploded and flipped his Jeep. I was there. With the sun and the sand and the heat and the rockets falling. I wasn’t here, John…I was there.”
“And yet—”
“And yet nothing. I. Can’t. Do. This.”
Jill came out of the RV, her concern written in every step. Lauren hefted the knapsack again.
“Jill’s going to take me home. You two can stay here and do what you want. But I’m going home.”
John stood there, fuming. She was running away again instead of facing her fears, instead of coming to grips with her demons. Before he could stop himself, the word slipped out.
“Coward.”
She turned, her eyes flashing. “You have no right to judge me, John McAllen.”
“Don’t I? Goddamn it, Lauren, do you think you’re the only one who came home from Iraq with nightmares?” He lost his temper, letting her have it all. “I don’t watch around every corner anymore and I don’t jump at every noise. Why? Because I’ve worked my ass off confronting my past. Three years I’ve worked at it and you know what? I’m better now. I can point an unloaded gun in the general direction of a bunch of ‘play soldiers’, as you call them, and not see the ten-year-old boy I killed by accident in an ambush. I can hear the cannon roar and hear the sounds of the rifles in my ear without seeing his mother scream and hold his dying body.
“But you go ahead. You run away from your nightmares, Lauren. Because you’re the only one who’s ever had a flashback, you’re the only one who can’t take it. I’ve got news for you, sweetheart. The world doesn’t stop spinning because you’re having trouble coping.”
Tears streamed down Lauren’s face but he couldn’t stop. “Go home. You’re right. You don’t belong here.”
For several heartbeats they stood, staring at each other, their relationship in tatters. Then Lauren turned and fled toward Will’s truck. Without another word, Jill got in, turned the key in the ignition and the two were gone.
John didn’t even turn to watch them drive away. Will came to stand beside him, thinking he hadn’t seen his friend look so beaten since the two of them came home three years ago.
“I’m sorry, John.”
“I’m fucked up, Will.”
Will nodded. “We all are, buddy. We all are.”
Chapter Eighteen
Lauren’s rant was all over the evening news. Beth called to see if she’d seen it. Sarah called immediately after. Lauren told them both she didn’t want to talk about it and hung up. The TV pundits were having a field day with her diatribe, asking if reenactments were safe, if they were, in fact, dishonoring the real war dead with their playacting. Lauren felt so ashamed.
Although it was nearly nine o’clock, Lauren called Dr. Butters’ office. The answering service accepted the call and a kind female voice on the other end told her she would relay the message to Dr. Butters that this was urgent. She added that, if Lauren felt it a true emergency, the VA hospital’s emergency department was open. Lauren told her she only wanted to talk to Dr. Butters, thank you.
She sat on the sofa in her darkened apartment, brooding over the day’s events. Had it really only been that morning? She remembered the sunrise and how peaceful everything had been. Then the cannon let loose and Hell slid in.
The phone rang and she snatched it up. “Dr. Butters?”
“I’m here, Lauren. I saw the news and hoped you’d be calling.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Can you come to the office?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me in a half an hour.”
“Thank you.”
She hung up but still sat in the dark, not quite ready to move. She could hide in the dark, keep the enemy at bay. The sunlight bared everything while its glare worked to blind you so you couldn’t see what was in plain sight.
No, darkness was better.
Standing, she walked to her curtains, staying to the side of the window and peering out. The sun had nearly set. Another few
minutes and it would be dark enough for her to venture outside. Twilight wasn’t as good as nighttime, but was loads better than sunlight.
Lauren made it to Dr. Butters’ office only five minutes late. Sitting in the car, she checked her surroundings, only getting out and hurrying into the building after taking several deep breaths to calm herself.
A light was on in the office on the second floor and Lauren hurried toward it. Taking one more good, deep breath, she opened the door and stepped into the light, her eyes quickly assessing the room. Finding it empty except for the good doctor, she relaxed for the first time since making the phone call.
“Tough day?” At fifty-five, Dr. Clifford Butters had seen it all. Or rather, thought he had. This was the first time he’d had a patient’s meltdown broadcast on national television. The reporter, a local who’d been sent out on a routine, cover-the-reenactment-because-we-need-filler story, suddenly found herself covering a scene with huge implications. He could only wish the reporter’s career hadn’t been made on the back of his very nervous patient.
“Sit down, Lauren. You know you’re safe here.”
Lauren nodded and took the seat indicated. The office wasn’t huge, just big enough for his desk by the window, a set of bookcases along the wall and two comfortable leather chairs. She sat on the edge of one, looking like a scared bird ready to take flight if he said or did the wrong thing.
“You want to tell me about it?”
At first hesitatingly, then with increasing passion, Lauren poured out her heart. Her posture, at first controlled and erect, gradually relaxed as she told him of her love for John, of the kinky sex they had and of her mixed-up emotions about reenactments. When she would pause, he’d only ask a small question, but it would be enough to get her rolling again. For the first time since he’d been seeing her, he felt she was being completely honest, not only with him but with herself.
When she ran out of steam, he asked another of those little questions that could lead to something big. “So, do you love this John McAllen or not?”