“I was stationed at CampReed three years ago,” he began. “A Marine Recon, Lieutenant Cal Talbot, busted up his leg on one of those rocky, cactus-strewn hills during war games. I was at the weather desk at Ops when the call came in. The wind was really gusting—maybe thirty or forty miles an hour—coming in off the Pacific. Talbot’s team was calling for immediate pickup because he was bleeding to death. He’d not only broken his leg, he’d cut into an artery. They’d applied a tourniquet trying to stop the worst of the bleeding, but the situation was grim.
“I volunteered because his last name was Talbot, like mine. My copilot, Brent Summers told me we should do it—that it wasn’t every day I could save one of my relatives out in the field.” Craig scowled, nervously running his hand up and down Sabra’s velvety arm. “He wasn’t a relative, of course, but Summers and I tended to be high risk takers, so we went for it. When we reached the area, I realized the high-tension electric lines were too close to the pickup area. I couldn’t land, because they were on the side of a very steep hill, and we could see that the Recons couldn’t move the officer to better ground.”
Sabra frowned. “What did you do?” She wasn’t a pilot, but she knew the risk of strong gusts of wind. It chilled her to think that they could have been blown into those power lines….
“I ordered my crew chief to drop the litter basket we carried for such rescues. My helo was dancing all over the place, and Summers was watching out the window, telling me how close we were to the wires.” He shook his head. “We had so many close calls that day, I lost count. Finally, we managed to rescue Cal. We flew him to the base hospital and saved his life. That evening, I went to see how he was doing. That’s when I met his wife, Linda, who was pregnant then with their first child, Sammy.”
Sabra heard Craig’s voice drop, and she slid her arm around his waist, squeezing gently. “They are very lucky to have you for a friend. You didn’t have to go find out how he was.”
“I’ve always been that way,” he muttered, absorbing her touch.
“Something happened, though?”
“Yeah,” he whispered roughly, releasing her and pushing himself into a more-upright position against the wall. The covers pooled around his waist, and Sabra moved close, her hand on his blanketed thigh, her eyes soft with compassion. Glancing down at her, Craig said, “It happened during Desert Storm.” He almost choked on the words.
Sabra’s hand tightened on his tense thigh, and she held his grief-stricken gaze. “I thought it might have.”
He studied her a moment. “How?”
“Terry had seen action in Vietnam, and he warned me the first day we teamed up not to touch him to waken him—just like you did.”
“I see….”
Sabra reached out to captured the hand that lay against his belly and tangled her fingers with his. “It’s a symptom of posttraumatic-stress syndrome. I know I’m not telling you anything new. But Terry sat me down and we had a long heart-to-heart talk about what he’d seen during the war and how it affected him.” Sabra shrugged, saddened. “I’m pretty used to what you think might be terrible to tell others, Craig. In the past five years, Terry has had some nightmares as bad as the ones you’ve had. I remember the first time he had a night terror, and I ran into his room to help him, like an idiot.” Sabra touched the side of her jaw. “I forgot what he’d told me, and he nailed me with a right cross that sent me flying halfway across the room.”
Craig’s eyes narrowed.
“I had it coming,” Sabra said wryly. “It broke the skin but didn’t break my jaw. I was young and idealistic then, thinking I could change things.” She studied his scarred, burned hand against her own perfect-looking one. “Terry taught me a lot about PTSD, Craig. I understand that it’s hard for you to communicate what happened because you’re ashamed.” She fought back tears, her voice dropping to a husky, uneven whisper. “I see no shame in what’s happened to anyone who’s been in a wartime situation. I don’t think less of you for crying out. For wanting to cry, even if you don’t….”
Craig tightened his fingers around her slender ones. “So you knew all along…”
“In a way, I did. I didn’t want to make assumptions, though. I felt it was only fair to wait and let you share with me when you were ready, Craig. Terry taught me that everyone reacts differently to any given situation. One thing you have in common, though—the trauma is like baggage.”
His mouth flattened and he managed a twisted smile. “Yeah, that’s for sure.” His terror dissolved a little more at Sabra’s understanding look, and he felt more emotionally stable with her holding his hand. He placed his other hand over hers. “I haven’t been giving you very much credit, have I?”
“You remind me of Terry in some ways,” Sabra admitted softly. “So it’s easy to allow you the space you need. But it would help if you could share what happened.”
Craig hung his head and concentrated on running his fingers across hers. Sabra’s skin was so smooth and unmarred, unlike his own. But scars went beyond the visible ones; he carried the worst ones inside him, where very few people could see them. Struggling to speak, he said, “I…tried to talk to Linda about it, thinking she’d understand…” He shook his head, then rasped, “After that experience, I didn’t talk to anyone again. Ever.”
Sabra changed position, sitting next to him, capturing his hand and holding it firmly between her own. “We share something very special,” she quavered. “I hope you can trust me enough to tell me, Craig. Whatever it is, it’s eating you up alive. I see it in your eyes when the nightmare’s got a hold on you. I saw it earlier tonight.”
He closed his eyes, tipped back his head and rested it on the headboard, glad of Sabra’s steadying touch. “No one knows what happened. Not even the widows and children who were left behind,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “I was flying my second raid of the night. It was windy, very windy, and I was flying ‘nap of the earth.’ Brent was copilot, and in back, I had two more Recon teams to drop close to the enemy lines. We were responsible for the first assault, before the rest of the forces engaged.
“It was so dark that night, and I’ve never sweated like I did then. My flight suit was wringing wet. My gloves were so sweaty they were slippery on the controls, and I worried about losing my grip, and sending us crashing into one of those dunes. Cal Talbot was there. He and his men made up one of the Recon teams. We carried a total of ten men….”
Craig opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling as the scene rolled out as if on film before him. “We were all nervous—except Cal. He came over just before the mission, slapped me on the back and told me how lucky he felt having me as the pilot on this mission. I remember saying I didn’t feel lucky that night. I was scared. I’d just come back from the first drop, and the damn wind was so bad it had nearly knocked us into a high sand dune. Luckily, Summers saw it and warned me in time. We’d had three grenades launched at us, too, though we’d managed to avoid them somehow…. Still, my hands were shaking like leaves, and my knees were so weak I sat in my chopper for fifteen minutes before I had the strength to get up and walk out of there.
“Cal thought I was joking. He’d never seen me scared. He pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket. In it was a lock of hair from each of his daughters. He told me he carried it for good luck and gave it to me to hold onto for this trip. I said no, that he should keep it, but he just laughed and stuck it in my left sleeve pocket. He laughed and said that if we crashed, I’d survive.
“I stood next to my bird while they were refueling, just shaking. Cal went back to check his team before boarding, but I had this knot in my gut. Finally I ran away from the lights and the crews and puked my guts out. That’s how scared I was.”
“With good reason,” Sabra said unsteadily. All the fear Craig had worked so hard to control was alive in his eyes as never before. Did he realize how strong he was? How brave he was to try to behave normally in society while carrying these awful memories?
With a shrug, he muttered
, “I came back, washed my mouth out with some water from a canteen I borrowed from one of the ground crew and climbed into my bird. Once we had everyone on board, Cal came up, patted my shoulder and slipped a white envelope into my hand. He told me to hold it for him until he got back. There wasn’t time to talk, so I jammed the envelope into my uniform.
“The wind was just as bad the second time, and the mission was more dangerous because we had to fly through the Guard lines to drop the teams behind them. I was really worried about SCUD missiles and grenade launchers. Summers kept a sharp watch calling out the elevation of the terrain as we flew along only about ten feet above it at any given time.”
Craig felt sweat popping out on his brow, and shame swept through him as he lifted his hand to wipe the moisture away. Sabra’s lips parted, and her eyes grew sad, but her hand remained strong and stabilizing on his. Taking a ragged breath, he forced himself to go on. “Things got really tense near the drop zone. We’d already had two grenade launchers shoot at us. Luckily Summers saw the flash from the barrels, and I was able to haul the bird up and out of target range. But each time we did that, I knew we were exposing ourselves to enemy radar. It couldn’t be helped. I was afraid we’d been spotted, but I had to drop the two teams near an ammo dump they were going to blow up. That action was necessary to create a diversion that would allow a much-larger force to sweep down and catch the Guard off-balance.”
More sweat broke out on Craig’s upper lip, and he could feel perspiration trickling from his armpits. His voice was shaking now as the adrenaline began to surge through him, like it always did when he relived the event. Sabra reached over and gently wiped the moisture from his brow and upper lip with her fingers. The empathy in her eyes gave him the strength to continue. “We were almost to the drop zone when it happened. The wind jostled us badly and threw us off course. I was wrestling with getting us back below radar range and Summers was calling out the elevation.”
Craig shut his eyes tightly, his voice breaking, his breathing becoming erratic. “Neither of us saw it coming. Neither of us…I don’t know how many times I’ve replayed it in my mind. Why didn’t we see that third grenade being fired?” He squeezed Sabra’s hand more tightly. “I remember Summers screaming out, jabbing his finger toward the right, but it was too late. The grenade hit the main rotor, and the bird flipped up, like a wounded thing. Shrapnel and fire showered through the cabin. The Plexiglas shattered and blew in on us. The fire was over my arms as I wrestled with the bird, trying to stop it from sinking tail first.
“We slowly turned over, the rotor screeching and I heard screams from the rear. Brent was slumped forward, hit by something. Probably shrapnel. All I could do was try to control the helo enough so that we might survive the crash. Everything slowed down, as if I were moving in slow motion. Smoke clogged the cabin, and I lost my sense of direction. No matter what I tried to do to control the bird, it wouldn’t respond. I figured out later that the cables to the rudders and tail assembly had been severed by the grenade blast.
“We went down. The bird flipped onto its side and crashed on the slope of a very steep dune that felt like concrete. It hit on Summers’s side, and I thought the jolt would snap his neck. I heard the metal tearing, and I remember Cal’s voice above everything, ordering his men to not panic. I was amazed at his calm—that he was even conscious, much less thinking clearly. He was such an amazing man….”
Wiping his face savagely, Craig squeezed his eyes shut. Every word became a major effort, and his chest rose and fell as he went on, perspiration covering his entire body now. “When the bird came to rest, I managed to cut myself free of the harness, and I pulled Summers out through the nose. The screams of the Recons were awful. It was so dark, and the fire’s dancing light hurt more than it helped. I scrambled around, trying to locate the hatch. Since the bird was on her side, one of the escape routes was blocked. I managed to climb up on top, and I tried—God, I tried to get to that other door. It was jammed from the grenade blast, and I couldn’t open it. The fire was getting worse, and I could hear the screams of the men inside. They couldn’t escape through the cabin because it was already consumed by fire.”
Craig opened his eyes and slowly lifted his hands. “I tried to open that door. The fire was so bad. I threw myself against it, I lost count of how many times. The screams—those screams for help…I could hear the men pounding against the inside of the helo. I heard Cal crying out.” His hands shook and he let them fall into his lap. “There was an explosion. I felt this blast of heat, and I was thrown through the air.” His brow furrowed deeply. “It was the last thing I remembered.”
Shaken, Sabra slid her arms around his damp neck and held his broken, dark gaze. “Oh, Craig, how awful….”
“For me? No,” he said harshly, “I survived. I was the only one to survive. It was a lot tougher for Summers and Cal, and the other Recons.” He managed a tortured grimace. “I was the lucky one.”
“Were you captured by the enemy?”
“No. Another helo with an Air Force flight surgeon on board was sent in to pick up survivors. I—I don’t remember anything until I woke up at a burn unit behind the lines. My hands—” he picked them up and studied them darkly “—suffered third-degree burns. They were suspended away from my body when I regained consciousness. The left side of my face was pretty much totaled, too. I had a real deep gash on my left cheek. But compared to what those men suffered before they died, it was nothing.”
Sabra gently touched his set jaw, feeling the tension in it. “You did what you could.”
His hands closed slowly into fists. “It wasn’t enough,” he rasped harshly. “I should have kept working that hatch. It was starting to give way…. I should have—”
“The lock mechanism had melted from the blast,” Sabra interrupted quietly. “Or it jammed, Craig. If you couldn’t get it open, no one could have.”
He shrugged wearily, the silence deepening. “I remember a woman doctor leaning over me, telling me I’d broken my left ankle in two places and cracked four ribs on my left side. My right arm was fractured. When I told her how I’d gotten Summers out and then tried to open that door, she said it was a miracle I was alive. I shouldn’t have been able to do any of it with so many broken bones. Adrenaline, I guess…”
“It was,” Sabra whispered, fighting back her tears. “How you could walk on a broken ankle, much less try to force open that door covered with fire is beyond me.”
“I’m no hero,” he said flatly. “So don’t look at me like that. I should have rescued them. I should have gotten to them—”
“No!” Sabra gripped his hands—now knotted, white-knuckled fists in his lap. His skin felt damp and clammy. “No,” she rattled, “you did as much as you could do, Craig. What you accomplished was beyond ordinary human strength and courage. I know Cal was your friend. I can’t even begin to imagine how you felt, hearing him scream….”
Blindly, Craig reached out, sliding his arms around her, pulling her hard against him. Tears squeezed from beneath his tightly shut eyes. Her arms went around him, strong and steadying. He buried his face in her hair, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
“Let it go,” Sabra whispered, holding him as tightly as she could. “Cry, Craig. Cry for Cal. Cry for Brent. And for Linda and the children….” She slid her trembling hand across his hair and her voice cracked. “I’ll hold you, darling. Just let it go, please….”
The huge fist of pressure, followed by the burning sensation that was always there in the nightmare, came swiftly. Sabra’s husky voice and firm touch broke down the last barriers within him. She was holding him, and the whole poisonous nightmare spilled up through him. His throat constricted, a huge lump jamming there, and he gasped for breath, pressing his face against her hair, trying to avoid it. Trying to stop it. But it was impossible. Sabra’s soothing voice shattered the hold the nightmare had on him. The past warred with the present, the choking odor of oily smoke and burning metal warring with her sweetly fe
minine scent. A sound like that of an animal being wounded tore from his contorted lips, and he clung to her, as the first strangled sob ripped out of him.
Sabra caressed Craig’s damp cheek, feeling the slow, hot tears begin trickling down his face. She pressed her jaw against his brow, allowing him to bury his face against her. A second sob shook him, making his whole body tremble in the wake of the violent release. Tears scalded Sabra’s eyes, her heart breaking with the sounds that began to tear from deep within him. Craig had gone through so much. He needed to cry—to release the horror that had lived in him for the past two years. She kept rubbing his shoulders and down his back. With each stroke of her hand another sob broke loose. Why was it so hard for men to cry? Sabra had long ago lost count of the times she’d cried. It was a wonderful, healing release. Didn’t men realize that? What in their stoic natures prevented them from being human?
She knew all too well that the military frowned on men crying on the battlefield, believing it showed weakness. Craig’s arms were so tight around her that her rib cage hurt, but she didn’t care. He was holding on to her as if she were the last person on earth, afraid to let go for fear that she, too, would reject him.
Gradually, over the next fifteen minutes, his harsh sobs diminished. Sabra was able to settle next to him, her body a fortress for him after the fury of his emotional storm. She guessed that with his military background, Craig would be ashamed that he’d cried in her arms. Frustrated, she realized she could do little to prevent those feelings. Now that he’d told her the whole story, she knew what she’d already believed. Craig’s only real fault was the depth of his guilt at not being able to rescue the men he’d loved as brothers. Sabra could only guess how awful he must feel to have lived through such a horrifying experience, but her heart broke for him.
“Here,” she offered tremulously, handing him the edge of the sheet, “you can use this as a handkerchief.”
Craig slowly eased away from Sabra, taking the proffered fabric and wiping his face dry of the perspiration and tears. It hurt to look up and meet Sabra’s eyes. What would she think of him now? He’d admitted his cowardice. He’d told her of his inability to help his dearest friends in their worst moment. Would he see the accusation in her lovely gray eyes as he had in Linda’s? Anguish cut through him in a new way, because he was vulnerable now as he’d never been before. Allowing the sheet to drop aside, he risked everything, and looked up—into Sabra’s luminous eyes.
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