by Alexa Kang
"I said we need to press the military transportation staff to move those patients out of the hospital more quickly. Those patients are ready to be sent home. We need to clear the hospital beds for new patients."
"Of course, Captain. You're right. I'll talk to the transportation staff sergeant again tomorrow. Why don't we break for the night? It's been a long day. We can both use some rest." He took a deep breath and rubbed his temple.
Before Fran could answer, someone knocked on the door.
"Come in," Aaron said.
Ellie Swanson entered. Aaron immediately sat up straight.
"I'm sorry to interrupt. Captain Milton, Colonel Callahan is here to see you," Ellie said. She lowered her voice in deference to Fran.
"What now?" Fran threw up her hand. "I've given him all the records he wanted." She turned to Aaron. "I tell you, that man is incompetent. He needs someone to spoon-feed him. How he ever rose up the ranks, I'll never know." She took her files from Aaron's desk and started out the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ellie giving Aaron a shy smile.
"Lieutenant, come with me," she ordered Ellie.
"Yes, Ma'am."
Together, they left his office. Aaron finished his tea and opened the top right drawer of his desk. From the drawer, he took out a small wood-carved dove ornament he had been working on. This was what he had wanted to do the entire time when Fran Milton was droning on and on about relocating the patients. The relocation of patients was not an urgent issue. The winter weather had slowed the attacks and counter-attacks on the front. For the time being, shortage of hospital beds was not a concern. In any case, there wasn't much more he could do to sway the navy to accommodate their requests. There were only so many ships coming in. Every division needed them.
He picked up his small carving knife. It had been ages since he had made a wood-carved ornament. The urge to carve came back to him last week when a fellow doctor showed him a photo of his family with a Christmas tree. One of the ornaments hanging on the Christmas tree was a ceramic dove. It inspired him to return to his old hobby again. He used to be very good at carving wood ornaments and statues. In fact, he was good at anything that required a steady hand, patience, and attention to detail. In that respect, surgery and wood-carving were not all that different to him.
What he really wanted was to give Ellie Swanson a nice little Christmas present. The sight of Ellie Swanson just now gave him a second wind and a burst of fresh energy. He started carving out the details of the dove's wings. As he carved, he thought of her. She had made an impression on him ever since the first time he saw her. She, along with a group of new nurses, had arrived to join the 33rd in Africa back during the summer. They were all admirable young ladies, so brave to have come all this way to a strange foreign land in such dangerous conditions, wanting to help.
The battles in Sicily and Salerno brought in thousands of casualties. The soldiers' wounds were horrific. The pressure to care for so many trauma patients all at once stretched everyone's strength and abilities to the max. Yet, this young woman working beside him, who had never worked in a military field hospital before, who was so unassuming and modest on the outside, found the gumption to take in everything. She kept going as one patient after another rolled in. She never said a single word of complaint. Her gentle touch relieved the pains of the wounded in ways that morphine couldn't.
One night, in Salerno, he had collapsed in utter exhaustion and fell asleep on the beat-up couch in the room that served as his office in the abandoned school building where they had set up their mobile hospital. The chilly night air was blowing through the window, but he was too tired to get up to close it or put on his jacket. He'd been on his feet for twenty hours straight and hadn't slept in thirty-six hours. His feet and legs ached and he couldn't stand up, so he curled his body a little more and wished for the cold temperature to miraculously go away.
Half asleep, he felt a gentle hand stroking his forehead. Maybe he was dreaming. He couldn't tell. He was too tired to open his eyes. He felt someone putting a blanket over him. He forced his eyelids open and saw the shadow of the back of a young nurse at the door. Ellie Swanson. A cup of hot tea sat on the small wooden stand next to him by the couch. The wind had stopped and the window was closed.
It had been many years since anyone had done anything like this for him.
He continued carving, focusing on the beak. He left the beak slightly open so the bird appeared to be chirping. The bird looked happy this way. It would make her smile. It made him smile. Even in this broken city torn apart by war and destruction, the thought of Ellie Swanson cheered him up.
But then, he sighed. If only he weren't so old already. He was practically old enough to be her father.
He had waited all these years for the right person and that right feeling. He held onto the steadfast belief that given time, he would find that person. How unfortunate it was then that time itself had now become the impediment.
If he weren't so old already, he would not hesitate to go after her.
35
It was an unusually cold December afternoon when Anthony finally had a chance to see Tessa again after Thanksgiving. When he was away on missions, he missed her, even more so now because he knew she would be here when he returned.
Despite being deployed in the same region, they were more often separated than not. Walking down the streets of Naples with her, he wished time would slow down. He cherished the little time they could have together, every minute of it.
On their way to the Palme Theater, he deliberately slowed down his pace. Today, the theater would be showing, "Thank Your Lucky Star." He didn't care if they missed part of it, he wasn't a fan of musicals. All he cared was that they were together. With her by his side, holding onto his arm, he could keep on walking.
"Look, Anthony! It's Kilroy!" She ran a few steps ahead of him to the side of a building where a graffiti of the cute little bald man with beady eyes and the long nose peeked over a wall. Next to the graffiti, someone had written, "KILROY WAS HERE."
He smiled.
She walked by a lamp post and swung around it, then pointed at the snow at the top of the mountains surrounding the city. "It snowed up there. Do you remember New Year's Eve last year? It was snowing that night."
Of course he remembered. That night, the temperature was freezing. Flurries of snowflakes drifted in the air when they walked across Uncle Leon's isolated courtyard, then across the Michigan Avenue Bridge on their way to the Allerton Hotel. He remembered how happy he was to be alone with her, just the two of them with no one else around except nameless passersby on the streets.
Just the two of them. Like now.
He watched her standing in the middle of the street, laughing and delighted with the snow on the mountain that reminded her of the night they first confessed their love to each other. She relished this moment of them together as much as he did. It was because of him that she found the snow to be a wonder, and it is because of her that he found these ruinous streets to nonetheless be a beautiful sight. Every place was beautiful as long as she was in it.
He wouldn't tell her that up on the mountains, the snow was not a wondrous amazement but an ordeal to suffer when he was sleeping outside night after night, especially if the sky was also pouring freezing rain. He didn't want her to know that two days ago, a bomb landed as close as fifty feet beside him as he dived into a foxhole, or that three days before that, a piece of metal from the enemy's shell hit the ground, ricocheted up, and nicked him in the thigh, or how on that same day, he saw two men walking ahead of him step on a mine and both of them had their legs blown off. He did not want to ruin the moment with these horrors. He wanted to have something wholesome to look forward to when he returned to her.
He thought back to that night on New Year's Eve. As long as she was in this world, then he still had something to fight for. As long as there would be winter days when they could walk side by side as the snowflakes fell, he would remember that he still had
good things in this world to live for. As long as she was there for him, waiting for him to return to her, he would do whatever it took to stay alive.
For Christmas, he had only one wish. He wished this war would end. When it did, he would bring this girl home and start a new life with her. He could take it, whatever hardships and miseries, as long as she was there, and they had a future to look forward to.
He caught up to her and tugged her elbow to draw her attention back to him. She let him take her into his arms and buried her face against his chest. Yes. She was happy to be with him. He knew that. He was sure of it. He wanted to keep her in his arms, always, to protect her and keep her safe.
Outside the hospital, Tessa looked out to the Apennine Mountains beyond the city. Somewhere in those mountains, Anthony was with his men, holding onto the Allies' defensive lines.
Was he okay? She pulled her rose pendant out of her collar. Please let him be okay. Please let him be safe, she thought as she turned the pendant in her fingers.
He rarely told her what happened out there. Being his chivalrous self, he still wanted to protect her from the horrors he faced even though she was now here and could see much of it for herself. She understood his wishes and didn't ask. It was why she hadn't told him she was wearing the rose pendant. She didn't want him to know how much she missed him and worried about him. She didn't want him to feel the extra burden of her worries when he fought.
But how could she not know? She saw every day what happened to the soldiers brought to the hospital. She heard what they said when they talked. In the mountains, the Allies' advances north had come to a grinding halt. The Germans had taken full advantage of the geographical terrains to slow them down. Blizzards, snow, and poor visibility at the high altitudes hampered the Allied units from advancing on the ground. The weather conditions made it impossible for the American Air Force to capitalize on their superiority in full. The situation could not be sustained. Sooner or later, the Allied Command would have no choice but to change their strategy.
And change was coming.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Free French soldiers began to fill the streets. There were now as many of them as there were British and Americans in Naples. More and more American troops were returning to base and put on reserve. The French had replaced them in the fight.
What that meant for the Allies' strategy and the Sixth Army Corps, she did not know. For the moment, she was just glad that the American troops were coming back. The French arrival meant the Americans could spend Christmas at the base away from the front line. If Anthony's unit returned too, she and Anthony would be able to spend Christmas together. For this Christmas, that was what she wished for.
There were miracles on Christmas after all. Someone must have heard her prayers.
The day Anthony's unit returned, Jonesy and Ollie came to the hospital at once to invite the nurses to join their regiment's Christmas bash at the Villa of Count Zeffirelli.
Like all aristocrats, the Count had lost his entire fortune after the German occupation. His villa was all he had left. That and his dog, a little old terrier that was on its way to senility. It so happened, Jonesy and Ollie found it wandering around the streets one day, lost. Luckily, the poor dog wore a collar that bore the Count's family crest. They brought the dog back to the local nobleman, who had been crestfallen for days thinking it was lost forever. The two sergeants became friends with the count and somehow persuaded him to open up his once magnificent home to their battalion for a blowout Christmas party.
Not only that, they had convinced the command to let the officers and the grunts celebrate together. For one evening, all distinctions between officers and enlisted men would drop. The only thing the party needed was the company of ladies to make it a night. That, however, would pose no obstacle to the two sergeants determined on having fun after months of hard fighting. At the army hospital, Florence Nightingales of every hospital unit awaited. Problem solved.
Or so they thought until they tried to invite the nurses of the 33rd Field Hospital. They came around with their invitation while Tessa was reporting to Captain Milton.
"You all need to take your responsibilities much more seriously," Milton went off again on another one of her lectures when Tessa gave her a set of error-free patient reports. She could never acknowledge anyone for doing a good job. She could only focus on what she deemed wrong. "This is the problem with all you girls. You have no sense of what it means to be responsible. You all need to spend less time chitchatting with injured soldiers and more time doing your duties."
Tessa hardly needed this lecture. Of all people, she was the last to chitchat. Milton was straining to find something to complain about.
"We must all work as a team." Milton clasped her hands on her desk.
With great self-restraint, Tessa forced herself not to show any reaction. The truth was, Milton herself had the least team spirit of anyone.
"Being a team means we need to make sure everyone else is also doing their job. It's not enough that you are the one not wasting time. If your colleagues are wasting time cavorting with the soldiers, you have a duty to remind them there is work to be done. We are understaffed. When one person fails to do her share, others have to pick up the slack. That's why we must watch each other and make sure no one is shirking their—"
A loud knock on the door interrupted her. The door pushed open and Jonesy and Ollie came in without invitation.
"Lieutenant Graham!" Jonesy greeted Tessa with his jolly loud voice. Milton shot Tessa a suspicious look. Tessa did not care. She was glad for the interruption and gave Jonesy a quick smile.
"Captain! Dear, lovely Captain Milton! Like the Three Kings we've come and brought the Good News!! T'is the season when Christ is born…" Jonesy continued, oblivious to the aghast look on Fran Milton's face.
"…no, no, no, sorry that's not the good news…and there are only two of us here, not three." Ollie said. "But fear not, ladies. The real good news is, the officers and soldiers of the venerable Fifth Battalion cordially invite you…"
Jonesy didn't let him finish, "…the most outstanding, most beautiful, most compassionate nurses of the 33rd Field Hospital…"
"…to join us for our Christmas Eve party at the Villa de Count Zeffirelli," Ollie talked over him.
"We would be most honored by your presence," said Jonesy. "The nurses of the General Hospital unit, the 95th Evac Hospital, plus the 96th Evac have already accepted our invitation."
"And we would be most delighted if the nurses of the 33rd would join us as well," said Ollie. "Our battalion officers and enlisted men will all be there."
Tessa looked up. That meant Anthony would be there. They would be able to celebrate Christmas together.
"Absolutely not!" Milton said. Her harsh, final tone stunned all three of them. "A party. What nonsense! There are patients here in need of care. Who will take care of them if everyone leaves to go to a party?"
"Ma'am," Ollie said, "it'll only be a few hours for one evening."
"And we'll help you with whatever you need for the night," said Jonesy.
"I said no!" Milton adjusted her glasses and looked down at the papers on her desk. "In fact, if all the other hospital units have accepted your invitation, then we have all the more reason why the staff of 33rd must remain here to take care of the patients. At least some of us still remember that we have a job to do."
Offended, Jonesy lost his usual good humor. "How can you say that? What do you think we're all doing here?" Ollie tried to stop him but he continued. "Who's not doing their job? Where were you when our boys were out on the front line getting shot at and getting killed? It wouldn't kill you to do us a favor on Christmas Eve and let our boys have one night of fun after every kind of shit we've been through."
"Watch it, Sergeant!" Milton yelled back. "You're out of line. I order you both to leave here immediately!"
Just then, Aaron Haley walked in. "What's going on? What's all this commotion? I can hear you all
out in the hallway."
Jonesy and Ollie both straightened up.
"Why all this shouting?" Aaron asked again.
"Colonel, we're having a holiday party on Christmas Eve," Jonesy said. "We've come to invite the nurses of the 33rd to join. The nurses of all the other hospital units have already accepted. They'll all be coming."
"A Christmas party? That sounds fun."
"Yes, sir. It will be. You are invited too, of course! You'll be our special guest of honor!"
Aaron smiled and waved his hand in dismissal.
"But Captain Milton here is refusing to let the nurses of 33rd come," said Ollie.
"Why?" Aaron asked Fran.
"Colonel, if everyone's gone, who will be left to take care of the patients?" Fran said.
Aaron didn't seem concerned. "It's one evening. The doctors on duty will still be here, and not all the nurses will want to go." He smiled at Jonesy and Ollie. "I'm sure we can work out a staffing arrangement to accommodate."
"Colonel," Fran stood up from her seat. "I strongly advise against this. What if an emergency comes up?"
"If an emergency comes up, you'll be here, and I'll be here."
You'll be here, and I'll be here…on Christmas Eve. Fran relented and loosened up behind the desk.
"I'm sure we can coordinate with the other hospital units and work out a schedule to cover everything for one night," Aaron said. It would be nice for the nurses to get a break and celebrate. It's Christmas after all."
Tessa, Jonesy, and Ollie looked to Fran. Surprisingly, she had dropped her hardline attitude. "If that's your decision, Colonel, then I have nothing more to say."
"Thank you, Colonel!" Ollie said.
"Yes. Thanks very much," said Jonesy. "We mean it, Doctor, you are invited too!"
