“Well, good. I’m glad at least we held that damned hill.” Harris eventually spoke up.
“Yeah, we held it. Air finally came in the day you nearly bled to death.” Edwards’s manner was harsh, like a man determined to complete a task no matter how painful. “They blew the fuck out of everything. Got you back to the bunker. I didn’t realize it, but you’d caught a round in your groin. Fuck, man, I thought you were going to bleed to death.” He shifted his gaze from the floor to Harris. “You were so goddamn pale. You were airlifted out just after sunset.” Edwards leaned forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his knees, and looked Harris in the eye.
“Two days later, we were reinforced.” The memory of the smell, the flies, and the collection of the dead played through Edwards’s mind but went unspoken. “Four days after that, we fell back south of the Yellow River. We all did. Nobody’s been north since, and nobody will be. The president has given up.”
Harris stared and said nothing.
“Tang won the election. Says he’ll end the war. Says we never should have been here in the first place. Harmon says she ain’t going to fight a war just to have Tang turn around and quit. So she’s just going to up and quit instead. Apparently, she too wants credit for ending the war.” Edwards stood up, then sighed with frustration.
“The politicians are just walking away from it, huh,” Harris said in a low voice.
“Yeah, well, it’s easier for them. They didn’t walk as far as we did to get here.” It was the cynical Edwards that Harris was familiar with.
“That mean they’re going to send us home?”
“Who fucking knows? Word is we’re to remain here, for the time being anyway, to stabilize the region.”
“Ha!” Harris laughed. “How about stabilizing the region by killing all the Prick bastards.”
“Yeah.” Edwards agreed in resignation.
“So who all made it out of TOWs and Heavy Weapons?” Harris wanted to hear some kind of good news.
Edwards turned his gaze back upon Harris with hard-looking eyes. “Garrity,” Edwards stated flatly.
“Who?”
“Garrity. A boot mortarman. Skinny kid, dark hair, wore BCGs.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” Harris was bothered that he didn’t recognize the name or place the face.
“Well, he made it. Lost both his legs, but he made it.”
“Anybody else?” Harris immediately regretted asking.
“There ain’t nobody else, Harris. Nobody from Second Section. Hell, barely more than a couple dozen Marines left that hill alive.” Edwards’s eyes were hard but devoid of emotion.
“And how are you today, Corporal Harris?” Dr. Levine asked, then glanced at Harris’s chart.
“Never better, sir. How about yourself?” Harris’s words were a bit slow, as he was a bit groggy from the medication. Painfully, he sat up in bed.
“Good. Still having much pain?” Levine asked, having noticed Sean’s grimace from the effort.
“Not really, sir,” Harris lied. “I heard there’s a call center around here. I wanted to head down and try to make a video call to my mom, but the corpsman told me I’m to stay in bed.”
“Let me take a look at your face.” Levine leaned over and gently lifted the bandage. He would have liked to have seen less pus and swelling, but he kept that to himself. “It looks good, Sean.” Levine lowered his voice, and his tone became more fatherly. “I’m going to recommend some cosmetic surgery for you in the future.”
Levine was relieved to see, at least, the wound on Harris’s thigh healing better than expected.
“I want you to stay in bed and rest as much as possible. As far as talking with your mother, I’ll have a corpsman bring a laptop to you so you can talk to her from your bed. And perhaps, for now, you just talk to her without the video screen.”
“Thank you, sir.” Harris gently rubbed the bandage on his face. “She’ll be glad to hear from me.”
“You’re right about that, Corporal Harris.” Levine smiled. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes, sir, how about a bottle of bourbon?” Harris said with a smile made crooked from the nerve damage in his face.
Levine laughed as he began to walk away. “Not a chance. You get stumbling drunk, fall and tear open the wounds on your leg or face, you will be in a world of hurt.”
“Yes, sir.” Harris almost told Levine he already was in a world of hurt, but he kept it to himself.
Harris enjoyed hearing his mother’s voice, but he hadn’t enjoyed the conversation. It started pleasantly enough. Mrs. Harris caught Sean up on the family news. His sister, Casie, was working on a degree in sociology. His brother, Brian, had been accepted into a new FedAPS training program to become a federal law enforcement officer.
“Things are finally looking up,” Mrs. Harris said. The happiness in her voice was soothing to the rawness Sean felt inside.
“Unfortunately, I do have some bad news.” Mrs. Harris’s voice became timid.
Sean’s stomach turned. He didn’t feel strong enough for bad news.
“Well, not really bad news.” She tried to salvage the joyous mood. “I’ve accepted a new job as an administrative assistant for FedAPS, in Kansas City.”
Harris knew what this meant. He felt sick, hoping not to hear what he knew his mother would say.
“I’ve sold the house, Sean. It was really too much to handle after your father died, and with all you kids now out of the house…”
His father’s land. Sean’s home in northeast Kansas. The center of all his memories. The adventures along the woods of the Kansas River. The familiar sound of the trains. Adventures played out with his brother and sister. Where Dan Harris had taught Sean to shoot a gun. Where they’d buried the family dog. The only home Sean Harris had ever known, gone.
“…the pay is such an improvement. Oh, Sean,” his mother continued, the joy back in her voice, “everything will be better, you’ll see. I’m so happy President Harmon’s no longer pursuing the war. You’ll be back soon, and everything will be perfect again.”
Sean disagreed, but said nothing.
Feeling down after his phone call, Harris found distraction in a female corpsman named Walker. Harris thought she was very attractive, and talking to her eased his mind a bit. She suggested he keep the laptop and earbuds a little longer so he could watch a movie from the hospital’s network before evening chow.
Harris found a movie that had recently won several awards and was highly rated. The story was about two FedAPS agents who were hunting down rogue American militiamen, veterans from the war, engaged in vigilantism on social justice activists at a local college.
Harris thought the movie was stupid. The depiction of guns unrealistic. The starring actors were too wimpy. The plot was silly, but he hadn’t seen a movie in years, so he watched it to the end. When finished, he wished he hadn’t.
The film vilified American soldiers while glorifying Marxist activists. After what he’d seen of communism during his lifetime, Harris couldn’t understand anyone being attracted to it. Nor could he fathom the motives of people who praised those who would destroy them.
To take his mind off the bad movie, Harris checked various websites to find out what was going on stateside. He stumbled across an article that “reminded” readers “President Clark’s racist agenda” and Americanism had provoked the People’s Republic of China to strike at the United States in the first place. However, now with the last elements of the Clark administration leaving, including President Harmon, there was a chance for real “international healing” to begin. The author warned, however, this would not be easy. The last four years the PRC had been dealing with an “imperialistic American military guilty of destroying the economic and social fabric of the People’s government.” The worst perpetrator of this was the “misogynistic warrior culture of the United States Marine Corps.” The author cited “highest levels of crimes against humanity reported by the media in the history of journalism” as al
l the evidence needed to support his claims.
Harris searched media websites, looking for a different perspective on the war. He found none. It seemed every journalist celebrated President-Elect Tang’s promise to quit the war, or “Clark’s Folly” as many journalists referred to it. It seemed the nation’s consensus of the war was not only had it been a mistake, but a “great American sin.”
Disgusted, Harris slapped the laptop shut, leaned back in his hospital bed, and stared at the ceiling. Harris decided to skip dinner. He had no appetite. Instead, he lay in his hospital bed and thought of the war, his home before the war, his father, and his friend Hastings.
It’s all lost, he told himself.
The cold wind and dark clouds were of no consequence to Harris. He studied the barren landscape of tumbleweeds and leafless trees.
“This way.” Hastings nodded in the direction of an old wooden hotel.
The structure reminded Harris of the type he’d seen in the old Westerns he’d watched with his father. Harris followed his friend, whom he had met in boot camp and served with throughout the war, into the main entrance. The wooden floors were decrepit, and the wallpaper was peeling from the walls. The place looked abandoned, but Harris could hear voices and music from the other end of the hall. He and Hastings made their way towards the noise. They arrived at two open doorways on opposite sides of the hall. The door on the left was to an empty and quiet room. On the right, the room was raucous and loud. From the hall, Harris could see some of his old buddies–Reese, Sheridan, and Cortes–playing cards. Two other Marines, Scott and Hawke, were getting drinks at the bar. Excited to see his friends, Harris went to go join them, but was stopped by Hastings.
“You can’t come in here, buddy. That’s your side of the hall.” Hastings pointed into the empty room. “This room is for the dead.”
Harris shot up in bed, breathing heavily and his heart beating fast. Confused as to why he couldn’t see, he tore at the bandage on his face. Pain brought reality down upon him. He howled in agony.
“Quiet the fuck down! People are trying to sleep in here! Asshole!” another patient in the ward yelled.
Harris didn’t respond. His heart thumped hard in his chest, and he couldn’t catch his breath. In the dark glow of the hallway light, the ward’s walls became evil. Harris wanted outside. He felt desperate for fresh air.
Harris struggled out of bed. His face throbbing, his sides and leg hurting, he limped his way out of the large hospital room. Down a dimly lit hall, a corpsman was seated at a desk. He did not notice Harris limping away in the opposite direction. Harris’s desperation grew stronger when he saw a door labeled “Stairs.” Light-headed and dizzy, Harris kept one hand on the wall to stabilize himself.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” the corpsman yelled, having just seen Harris. Without response, Harris ignored his pain, pulled the door open, and limped through as fast as he could. Clutching the rail with all his strength, he fought the dizziness. He’d made it down a half dozen stairs when the corpsman entered the stairwell.
“Stop! What the hell are you doing?” The corpsman sounded more concerned than angry.
Harris, refusing to give up, tried to move faster, but only managed to lose his footing. He attempted in vain to catch himself as he fell down the few remaining stairs left in the flight.
His right leg took the impact of his fall, but it was the sharp pain in his ribs that he felt the most. He groaned through teeth clenched so tightly his jaw hurt. Harris dropped his head to the concrete floor, adding to his agony. His fight was gone. On the floor, he desperately prayed for God to save him from the pain.
“Corporal Harris.” Dr. Levine pulled a chair next to Harris, sat down, took off his glasses, and looked the young Marine in the eye. “What the hell were you trying to pull last night?”
Harris looked him in the eye and said nothing.
“You’ve reopened the wound on your leg. You managed to refracture your bones that had not fully healed. I’ve been told you didn’t reinjure your face.” The doctor roughly tilted Harris’s head back but was gentle as he peeled the bandage from his left cheek. “Looks as good as it could at this point. No small miracle there. Now seriously, what were you doing last night?”
“I needed fresh air.” Harris’s voice cracked, adding further to his embarrassment over the situation.
“Fresh air?” Doc Levine sounded incredulous.
“I felt trapped last night. Like I had to get out.” Harris’s voice had settled down as he took control over his emotions.
“Go on,” Levine prodded.
“It was a bad dream. I woke up…like I was trapped.” A sense of relief began to replace Harris’s earlier embarrassment. “I felt like I was going to suffocate if I didn’t get outside.”
“Do you have a lot of these dreams? Where you wake up desperate to breathe?”
“No, sir. This is the first time anything like that has happened to me.”
“Do you remember what the dream was about?”
“No,” Harris lied. He looked away from Levine. “It was just a dream about people I’ve known. Those who are dead now.”
They sat silently. Doc Levine looked at Harris, who stared at the end of his bed.
“I think I understand, Sean,” Levine said with genuine empathy. “It hurts. Unfortunately, pain is the price we pay to defend what we love, but we do heal. Remember that, Sean, and that you’re not alone in this–”
“Yeah, but is it really worth it?” Harris interrupted, looking back at Levine. “Who the fuck else cares about winning?”
“You bet your ass it is!” Doc Levine responded with an even-keeled surprise. “And I, for one, care about winning. So did your father, and any other man who wants to protect his family! You think victory is too painful? Read about those who’ve lost in history. Especially those who’ve lost to communist tyrants of the last century. Victory is painful, but not as painful as defeat.”
“Victory?” Harris interjected. “You read the news lately? We have a president who wants to quit, a media that’ll only report their bullshit lies about us…the people who fight and die for the freedoms they pervert!”
Harris’s loud ranting caught the attention of other patients and corpsmen. Many of whom stopped what they were doing to listen.
“There ain’t one of those fucking reporters worth the life of a Marine. There ain’t one of those goddamned protesters worth the life of my father…” Harris stopped for fear of completely breaking down.
“You’re right, Sean,” Levine said with a calm voice. “They are not worth it, but our freedom as an American people is. We don’t fight so the media can make up lies. Or for college buffoons who disagree to shout people down, or destroy property. We fight so all of us can have the freedom to choose what to believe and how we will act. Because without that freedom, we’re nothing more than slaves. That freedom is worth it.”
“Yes, sir, it is.” Harris smiled a little. Although embarrassed by his emotional outburst, he felt comforted hearing a bit of his father in Levine’s words.
“You know–” Levine smiled back, leaned over and gently squeezed Harris’s right forearm “–these types of conversations remind me of talking with your father when we served together in the Mexican Campaign. He had a sharp mind. I miss those conversations.” Levine’s mind momentarily drifted to the past.
Levine stood up and moved to replace the chair, thinking he’d diagnosed Harris’s problem. “Good. And do what I do, ignore the news and read books instead of watching movies, and if you ever need fresh air again, you let me or one of the nurses or corpsmen know. We’ll get you outside. Understand?”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
“It’s frustrating,” Levine continued, not quite ready for their conversation to end. “If the media jerks behaved this way under the PRC, they’d be thrown into re-education camps or shot. And if we talked about the ChiCom media like we just did about our own, we’d be thrown in the same prison camps w
ith them. You’d think if we could recognize that fact and work with them”–the doctor shook his head–“they would too, and work with us. I don’t know what to do with them.” Levine chuckled as he began to walk away.
“We could shoot the bastards,” Harris said only loud enough for himself to hear.
CHAPTER TWO
“Weren’t you angry at him?” Joel Levine recalled how his own father had been so embittered by what he described as his grandfather’s abusive rebukes.
“Of course not.” Harris shook his head, smiling. “Your grandad was the most patient man I think I’ve ever met. I admired the way he came across as stern, without coming across as angry or hysterical. Not like I’ve seen some of the educational and administrative staff do around here.”
“That’s not how my father remembers him,” Joel confided. “He told me my grandfather was a cruel and bigoted man. He says his father was verbally abusive to him as a child.”
“Is that how you remember your grandfather, Mr. Levine?”
“No. No, it’s not. I remember him just as you’ve described him.” Flustered, Joel threw his pen down on the table. “Should I feel anger at my father’s lies, or relief that a convicted murderer describes my grandfather as a good man?”
Harris laughed until he realized Joel Levine wasn’t joking, but was distressed by this contradiction. “Well, I don’t know how things went between your father and grandfather once your grandad was sent home from the war.
“Over the course of our many conversations, your grandfather talked of how much he missed your dad and grandmother. He only got to see them three times over eight years. Hell, by the time he got home from the war, your dad had gone from five to thirteen years of age. One of his major regrets of the war was that he had missed out on so much of your father’s childhood.
“There was a time, when I was in the hospital, your grandad was especially bothered by a video call home. He said your dad had refused to talk to him because he wouldn’t collaborate with a fascist and a murderer, or some such bullshit.”
The Last Marine : Book Two (A Dystopian War Novel) Page 2
