Chapter 11

Perchance To Dream

There was smoke. Smoke so thick you could hardly see anything beyond the reach of your arm. Smoke so thick it even dulled the sound of the shots and shouts, swallowed the light flashes of gunfire, obscured friend and foe.

Not that he would be able to distinguish friend and foe anyway. He never had been. Not once. Every time he dreamed this dream—and, oh boy, he damned well knew that this was a dream, even though he suspected that it also was a recollection; and that was why he never did anything to flee the dream, to make himself wake up before he’d seen everything his memory would release this time—each time he dreamed it, he staggered around in that thick smoke, almost without sight or hearing, but with his feelings intensified to the point of being unbearable. For the only emotions he felt were dread and rage, and a devastating sense of being lost.

Only when the smoke thinned from time to time did he make out other men, other soldiers. Some he shot at, some shot at him. Some yelled, some cried, some had faces void of…anything. Some were brown-haired, some were black-haired, some were blond. One was a redhead. Some had blue eyes, some brown, some green. Most men had beards, some had moustaches, none was clean shaven. Some were lithe, some were tall, one was a giant. One had black teeth. One was hay-blond with uncannily blue eyes that stared at him in wide-open shock as he sank his bayonet into the man’s chest.

“Why?” the soldier asked him every time he was stabbed. “What have I done to you?”

He never had an answer. Because you’re my enemy somehow wasn’t enough to justify it—especially when he didn’t even know why this soldier was his enemy and what set him apart from a man he would call his friend.

All the faces he saw, as different and individual as they appeared, were all faces of human beings, and there was no way to tell who belonged to whom. Oh, he knew who was fighting whom, but in his dreams he never saw if it was a Union soldier who fired his gun at him or a Confederate. All he saw were faces; not the one thing that would distinguish one side from the other: the uniforms. Even in his dreams he had to laugh about the absurdity of it, and even in his dreams he choked on that laugh.

To make things completely frustrating, he couldn’t even see his own uniform. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He could see what he was wearing, only it wasn’t a uniform at all. He always wore black. Black pants, black shirt, black vest, sometimes a black jacket. Black, like death.

He looked down at himself, just to check, with just a hint of hope that this time it would be different, that this time his mind would provide him with an answer—but no. Instead, he found a new question, something he’d never seen before: he was wearing a lumberjack shirt. He was still wondering about this completely new twist in his accustomed dream, when he felt the usual excruciating pain in his right leg: the tearing of skin, the shredding of muscle and flesh, the impact of a .54 Minie ball on his thigh bone. He stumbled, fell, dragged himself upright again. Keeping his weight on his good leg, using his rifle as a crutch he tried to get himself out of the line of fire—but there wasn’t a line of fire, only a web of fire, and he felt bullets sizzling past him, tugging at his sleeve, pants leg, at his hair.

A face swam into his sight—black hair, black beard, brown eyes, no uniform discernable, he recorded in that part of his brain that logged every bit of information that might be helpful—shouting at him, though he couldn’t make out any words. Supporting hands helped him to the pathetic cover of a bush amidst the firestorm, “Will ya be all right, mate?” and then he was on his own, trying to stem the flow of blood with his handkerchief—how can there be so much blood when the bullet is still in?—trying to will the pain away, the panic and the feeling of having failed.

He shrugged half out of his jacket, ripped a sleeve off his shirt, tore it into strips, and managed to improvise a makeshift bandage for his thigh with them and the wadded kerchief . I have to get out of here, have to—Lord, what? There was something he had to do, he knew that. But what?

He slipped his jacket back into place and tried to get up. Tried to get on hands and knees—well, one knee mostly, for his right leg wasn’t able to carry much weight—by sheer force of will succeeded in it, panting, sweating. He remained like that for a few heavy breaths, revelling in this accomplishment. He’d never managed to get that far before, in none of the previous dreams, and he knew he had to push on: for all answers lay here, somewhere.

Carefully pulling his left leg under him, ignoring the renewed pain in his right, he slowly pushed himself from the ground. The part of his brain that was not busy fighting to provide him with at least some sort of equilibrium pointed out how very unwise his actions were, but another voice in his head said to ignore reason and just get on with it, a voice sounding strikingly like Joe—Joe? Who’s Joe? I have to follow that thought, have to, have to…cannot forget…have to remember… But there wasn’t time for that now, he had to concentrate on getting up, getting up.

And he got up. Slowly, painfully, always on the verge of collapsing back to the ground; but he got up. His body seemed to have taken the hint that he would not give in to any kind of agony, seemed to recognise his determination to be stronger than his injuries. He’d done that before, he was sure, and his body apparently remembered it, too.

He stood. Swaying unsteadily, his vision even more blurred than before, a buzzing in his ears that drowned out the already muted sounds of battle, a slight nausea adding to his discomfort, he stood. Triumphantly.

Now he only had to—had to—had to get to—had to…

And then he remembered. He had to convey a message, a message to…someone. He snorted. It didn’t really matter to whom he had to convey a message when there was no way he would get there anyway, did it?

“Sergeant?” Another blurry voice, another soldier he didn’t recognise just now, another face he had to file away to be named later. “Do ya need help?”

There it was: the way to not fail his mission. He reached into his jacket, pulled out the folded papers he’d been assigned to deliver and thrust it into his comrade’s hand. “Here, bring that to—”

And then there was a giant bang, a blow to his head, and the world exploded in a blinding white light before it was completely gone.

The first thing he noticed when his awareness returned was pain. Agonising pain, stabbing through his body with the force of a bayonet and yet a welcome reminder that he still was alive. He tried to move, tried to sit up, wipe off whatever sticky mass was crusting on his face, but his body screamed in protest, and even though he tried to ignore its cries he was unable to lift a single finger.

He stared into the darkness, listened to the eerie quiet, and tried to comprehend what had happened. He’d been wounded and apparently left for dead…No, that can’t be. Could it? No. Certainly he’d just have to wait. Someone would come looking for wounded soldiers. He would be found and brought into a field hospital. Sooner or later he would. Would he not? As the night went on he drifted in and out of consciousness, never strong enough to move but always alert, listening, hoping, waiting for rescue.

But rescue never came. Instead there came predators. Insects, rodents, a fox. Whispering humans, rummaging through the pockets of the dead, pulling boots off unresisting feet, pants from slack legs, jackets from limp bodies. They took away his clothes, too, and to his utmost disgust he wasn’t able to put up any resistance. He wanted to tell them he still was alive, but his voice was as frozen as the rest of his body. All he was capable of was raging inside his head, trying to break his paralysis, trying to move a hand, a feet, any limb, just move…something; say something, groan, moan, whimper, move, make a noise, move, move, move, or scream, scream.

At last he screamed, screamed aloud. It was hot, he was hot, why was he suddenly so hot when he should be freezing without his clothes? And why were they still going away, not realising he was alive and screaming, screaming! But they left him alone, dying out there alone; they didn’t notice, didn’t care, didn’t hear…how could they not hear him? How could they not see him move, frantically, thrashing out despite the pain, despite the feeling of tearing himself open—how could they not hear him crying, “Don’t go!”

There were hands suddenly, strong hands holding him down, soft, cold hands stroking his hot face.

“Shh,” said a quiet voice. “Shh, calm down. It’s a nightmare, that’s all. Just another nightmare. Wake up.”

The voice, her voice. His anchor, the one thing that grounded him, the one thing that pulled him back into the here and now when he got lost too deep in his dreams.

A bed. He was lying in a soft bed, not on the hard ground out there, and he wasn’t alone, wasn’t abandoned. She was here. She: familiar, warm, friendly, his…his. Opening his eyes was a hard labour, but he was rewarded with her familiar features, and that was worth the too bright light of here.

“I’m all right,” he rasped.

“No, you’re not. You nearly pulled open your stitches once again.” She shook her head, but smiled. “And we can’t have that, now you’re finally on the mend, can we?”

She adjusted the blanket over his still heaving chest, wiped the sweat from his face, supported his head while she held a glass of cool water to his lips, did all the things a good nurse was supposed to do. But as usual, she also stroked his chest as she smoothed the bedcover, her hand lingered a second on his face as she washed it, and her fingers fondled his nape as she held his head.

He leaned into her touch, secretly kissed her palm, whispered her name like an endearment, “Bernadette.” Her face was connected with a name, and that alone made it beautiful beyond measure.

She’d been with him from the moment he’d woken up in this hospital, had been with him even before, ever since he’d been brought into a field hospital, delirious, half dead. Being senseless for most of it, he didn’t remember his time there, but he’d been told how Bernadette had fought to keep him alive, how she’d managed to nurse him into a stable condition, how she’d arranged to put him on a transport to Charlottesville for better treatment, and how she’d managed to be appointed to join the transport. She’d certainly saved his leg, if not his life—and all that for a soldier without a name.

A soldier who didn’t even remember which side he belonged to.

But that didn’t seem important to her at all. First and foremost, she’d told him, she was a nurse, and a woman. And being Canadian, North and South didn’t matter for her anyway.

Canadian. He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, I just…. You don’t think I’m a woodcutter, do you?”

“A lumberjack? You certainly have the build for that…” Her eyes laughed. “But not the hands. What makes you think you are one?”

“Just something in my dream.” He inspected his hands. Calloused, yes, but she was right: not as calloused as a logger’s hands would be.

“Were there any other clues? A name, by any chance? I would love be able to call you by your name.”

He shook his head. “No, sorry. But I told you, you can just give me a name you’d like to call me.”

“I’d have to name you ‘Babe’ then—because you were lost as a babe in the woods.” She sniggered at his scandalised look. “But I won’t, don’t worry. I’d rather wait until you remember your real name—and then replace it with sweet nonsense.”

His real name. Perhaps it was the name from his dream…Joe. No, he didn’t think so. The name did seem important, though. There must be a Joe in his life. Joe…a friend? A comrade? His brother, uncle, father, son?

A son. Did he have a son? And if he had a son, did he have a wife, too? It couldn’t be, could it? If he had a wife, would being touched by Bernadette feel so right?

If he had a wife, wouldn’t he remember it? Her? But then again, he didn’t even remember his name….

Pressure built up behind his eyes; the sleeping pain at his temples that never left him completely slowly woke up, intensifying, foreboding the well-known throbbing agony.

“Are you all right?”

“I…yes. I’m…” No, he wasn’t. His head ached, he was hot, breaking into a sweat, feeling like suffocating, his chest suddenly too tight to breath. “Lethe…”

“What?”

“Lethe…the river…I don’t…” He would have laughed if he’d found the air for it in his lungs. He could remember the name of the river of oblivion in the Greek legends, but not his own. Pathetic.

Cool hands on his face, shockingly cold, like ice. But Lethe never freezes…

“God, you’re burning up!”

The river wasn’t freezing, couldn’t be, but most probably it was cold, and the air wouldn’t be so thick down there, breathing surely would be easier at the river banks. “Lethe…gotta…”

“Shh, drink this, it’ll help you cool down.”

Lethe, so cool, refreshing. He drank greedily, spilling cold water over his face, his chest, the pillow, the blanket…. Drank, drank, drank from the ancient river, greedily—and guiltily accepting forgetfulness where he knew he should seek remembrance, until dark oblivion claimed him and pulled him down to drown in nothingness.

___________
And, if you cannot remember it, think, now, how you drank Lethe’s water today: and if fire is deduced from smoke, this forgetfulness clearly proves the guiltiness of your desire, intent on other things.
~ Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy

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The words given were: giant, lumberjack, babe, logging, and legend.