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smackenzieBradford is never quite sure what is real and what is a dream out of his scattered memories of his very first serious war injury. He knows he was shot twice, although he would swear he only felt one bullet, and he knows Davies was right there and tried to dress the wound in his side, and he knows he was eventually picked up by stretcher bearers and carted back to the trenches, and he's pretty sure he had to share that stretcher with another man who was dead twenty minutes later. (As for how he's almost positive the man was alive when the stretcher bearers got him but dead not long after, he can't say. But he knows it happens.)
He knows he tried desperately to stay awake while he was lying in No Man's Land bleeding and in pain and unable to stand up – and being peppered with shrapnel after a shell exploded nearby – because he was afraid that if he was unconscious when the stretcher bearers came by, they would think he was dead and leave him there to be picked up later, if he was lucky and the Germans stopped shelling and shooting for long enough.
He knows he was taken to the first aid post and then to a dressing station, because he knows they couldn't treat him in the trenches and they wouldn't have left him to die there, but he only thinks he remembers being carried in the back of a cart to the casualty clearing station. He thinks there were other men in the cart with him, and he thinks their faces belonged to men of C Company who he should know, but he doesn't know who they were, or if they were even alive. He could have been dreaming he saw the faces of the dead riding with him, waiting for him to die or keeping him company because he already had.
He likewise thinks he remembers being taken into surgery at the casualty clearing station, someone pulling off his boots and cutting his tunic away and asking him his name and if he could remember what had happened to him, but he doesn't remember the surgery at all, or at least not in any specific kind of way. If asked, he would say the doctor cleaned and sewed up the bullet hole in his arm, and cleaned and sewed up the bullet hole in his side, because why else would he have gone to the CCS in the first place, but all he really remembers is lying on his back looking up at faces in masks. And that too could have been a dream.
He knows he was in pain. He knows he still is. And it's something of a relief to him, because it means he isn't dead, and the faces he saw in the cart were not the faces of ghosts keeping company with another dead soldier.
But at first it comes as a bit of a surprise when he wakes up in a tent at the casualty clearing station, his arm bandaged, his side aching, and someone probably sitting on the ground next to the bed from the way they're hunched over fast asleep, arms and head resting on the mattress, hair dark and messy.
Davies.
Bradford wants to know why he's here, doesn't want to wake him up, doesn't know what he'd say if the man did wake up. Now his arm hurts too, where he was shot, but Davies is lying on the opposite side of the bed from both of Bradford's injuries, and it's no trouble to rest a grateful hand on top of his head.
Bradford thinks about going back to sleep – maybe he won't hurt so much when he wakes up again – but now that he's fully conscious, there's too much pain. He wants to talk to a doctor and find out where he's going next, if he's bad enough to be sent to a base hospital and if they would send him home instead. His father is a highly regarded surgeon back in London, and he knows he'll get the best care possible there. Besides, he'll be home, and home might be good for him. It will be Christmas in a month, and he'd like to be home for Christmas.
Now he's started to think about his men and how they might be doing, whether or not the battalion achieved its objective near the river, what the next offensive is going to be or whether they might get a break for a while. He knows the battalion's months in the Somme accomplished very little at very high cost, and he doesn't want to have to put his men through more of the same. He doesn't want to lose any more of them or have to write any more letters to soon-to-be-bereaved parents and loved ones back home.
I need to write up a casualty list, he thinks. Berridge will need to know.
It takes another minute before he remembers that it just isn't possible to do such a thing, because he's at a casualty clearing station and not at the front line any more. Harris will have to do it. He hopes Harris is still alive.
He wants a doctor to come by and give him a shot of morphine. He can't even describe how badly his side hurts. He needs to pee and he's too afraid to move. He knows he has stitches – he can feel the needle holes in his flesh and the way the thread pulls – but he has a sudden fear of ripping them open and bleeding out all over the floor.
He must move anyway, some involuntary motion, because he feels Davies stir under his hand.
"Mr Davies," Bradford croaks. Oh, now he needs a glass of water too. He clears his throat to try again, but then Davies is sitting up, then standing, then apologizing. There are holes in his uniform, probably from shrapnel. He's holding his hat with both hands. The expression on his face seems to indicate that he thinks he did something wrong. "Why are you apologizing to me?"
Davies' mouth snaps shut. "I. Uh. The doctor didn't want me to stay. I should go back to my own bed." He turns to leave. Bradford suddenly doesn't want him to go – it’s very comforting to have him here among all the strange faces in other beds. Bradford would not have thought he'd be so desperate to not be alone, or that he even could feel alone surrounded by other people. He's gotten too used to being with his company, with his own men.
"Please. Stay." He reaches out, grabs Davies' hand. Surprise flashes across Davies' face. Bradford does not let go. "Just for a few minutes. Tell me if we reached our objective or not." Tell me how many more of my men are dead.
"I don’t think so, Captain," Davies admits. "We had to fall back. We retreated to the trench." He shrugs. "I went to the first aid post and the medical officer sent me on to a dressing station. Captain Harris must be in charge now."
"So he's still alive."
"I think so. I don't know. It was total chaos, Captain."
"I'm sorry."
"Now why are you apologizing to me?" Davies almost grins, and then seems to remember that it isn't exactly regulations to joke around with one's company commander as if you were equals. "I, um, Captain – it's been a long day."
"Yes it has. Thank you for coming to see me. I expect they'll send me on to a base hospital. I have a feeling that the wound in my side is worse than I think." He sighs, which makes his side flare unexpectedly. He winces, suddenly breathless with pain. He can feel his heart racing. The bandages over the wound feel cold and wet and sticky. Davies looks concerned. "Would you be so kind as to bring a doctor or an orderly over here? Thank you." Davies hustles off.
Bradford closes his eyes and tries not to think about what might have happened to him to hurt this much. Did the bullet break his ribs? Did the doctor not sew him up that well after all? How could he possibly be in this much pain?
Davies returns with a nurse who looks harried and bloody. She almost looks as if she's been fetched from a slaughterhouse.
"I think something's wrong," Bradford manages to tell her. She flips the covers back and they can all see that his bandaged side is red, bleeding through the gauze. He wants to faint. He never would have thought the sight of his own blood would make him so wobbly.
"Step back," the nurse says to Davies, nudging him out of the way and calling for an orderly. She unwraps the bandages, makes a frustrated face, and yells "Miss Chaplin! I need your help over here!" Another nurse appears, pushes Davies out of her way, and bends over Bradford's bed. "I think he pulled his stitches. I can't see. It shouldn't be bleeding like this."
Bradford grits his teeth as she pulls the bandages off.
"You'l have to leave, sir," the other nurse – Miss Chaplin – tells Davies.
"I'll be ok," Bradford adds, because Davies doesn't look convinced.
"I'll try and come back later, Captain," Davies says, "unless they send me back to the battalion."
"Now," Miss Chaplin says firmly, grabbing him and bodily turning him towards the tent door. He goes.
But he never does come back, because Bradford is taken back to surgery – the nurses have to find an orderly to help carry him – where they discover that floating bone fragments from where the bullet broke some of his ribs, as well as the jagged edges of the breaks themselves, are causing more damage than the doctor had anticipated. This necessitates another surgery, and as soon as Bradford is stable he's put on an ambulance train to the coast, and from there loaded onto a ship bound for home, and less than a week after he was shot, he's back in London.
This time he guesses that a good chunk of what he remembers is a distortion of the truth or a dream, because he knows for certain – because the nurse who went with him told him so – that for half the train ride he was delirious with pain and a spiking fever, and the crossing to London was so rough that he spent half of it being sick. He is never so glad to reach dry land in his life.
His parents and sister come to see him in the army hospital – Amelia even brings him flowers – but as soon as he can get out of there and go home to his parents' house, he does. The hospital is much more sterile than anyplace at the front, and he has no doubt he's getting the best care possible, but all the same, he doesn't want to be around all these wounded men. They are giving him nightmares, and after he wakes in a cold sweat for the third night in a row, terrified out of sleep by dreams he can't remember, he has a chat with his dad who has a chat with the doctors.
It's still some time before they discharge him. But when he can finally leave, his father makes arrangements for follow-up appointments and any physical therapy Bradford might need, and then he is very carefully bundled into a taxi and driven home.
words: 1943
total words: 38,846
note: i am seriously making up all the medical stuff as i go along, altho it's true that sometimes wounded men would be sent back to england, rather than a base hospital in france, to heal. and then as soon as they were able, a lot of them were sent right back to the front.
He knows he tried desperately to stay awake while he was lying in No Man's Land bleeding and in pain and unable to stand up – and being peppered with shrapnel after a shell exploded nearby – because he was afraid that if he was unconscious when the stretcher bearers came by, they would think he was dead and leave him there to be picked up later, if he was lucky and the Germans stopped shelling and shooting for long enough.
He knows he was taken to the first aid post and then to a dressing station, because he knows they couldn't treat him in the trenches and they wouldn't have left him to die there, but he only thinks he remembers being carried in the back of a cart to the casualty clearing station. He thinks there were other men in the cart with him, and he thinks their faces belonged to men of C Company who he should know, but he doesn't know who they were, or if they were even alive. He could have been dreaming he saw the faces of the dead riding with him, waiting for him to die or keeping him company because he already had.
He likewise thinks he remembers being taken into surgery at the casualty clearing station, someone pulling off his boots and cutting his tunic away and asking him his name and if he could remember what had happened to him, but he doesn't remember the surgery at all, or at least not in any specific kind of way. If asked, he would say the doctor cleaned and sewed up the bullet hole in his arm, and cleaned and sewed up the bullet hole in his side, because why else would he have gone to the CCS in the first place, but all he really remembers is lying on his back looking up at faces in masks. And that too could have been a dream.
He knows he was in pain. He knows he still is. And it's something of a relief to him, because it means he isn't dead, and the faces he saw in the cart were not the faces of ghosts keeping company with another dead soldier.
But at first it comes as a bit of a surprise when he wakes up in a tent at the casualty clearing station, his arm bandaged, his side aching, and someone probably sitting on the ground next to the bed from the way they're hunched over fast asleep, arms and head resting on the mattress, hair dark and messy.
Davies.
Bradford wants to know why he's here, doesn't want to wake him up, doesn't know what he'd say if the man did wake up. Now his arm hurts too, where he was shot, but Davies is lying on the opposite side of the bed from both of Bradford's injuries, and it's no trouble to rest a grateful hand on top of his head.
Bradford thinks about going back to sleep – maybe he won't hurt so much when he wakes up again – but now that he's fully conscious, there's too much pain. He wants to talk to a doctor and find out where he's going next, if he's bad enough to be sent to a base hospital and if they would send him home instead. His father is a highly regarded surgeon back in London, and he knows he'll get the best care possible there. Besides, he'll be home, and home might be good for him. It will be Christmas in a month, and he'd like to be home for Christmas.
Now he's started to think about his men and how they might be doing, whether or not the battalion achieved its objective near the river, what the next offensive is going to be or whether they might get a break for a while. He knows the battalion's months in the Somme accomplished very little at very high cost, and he doesn't want to have to put his men through more of the same. He doesn't want to lose any more of them or have to write any more letters to soon-to-be-bereaved parents and loved ones back home.
I need to write up a casualty list, he thinks. Berridge will need to know.
It takes another minute before he remembers that it just isn't possible to do such a thing, because he's at a casualty clearing station and not at the front line any more. Harris will have to do it. He hopes Harris is still alive.
He wants a doctor to come by and give him a shot of morphine. He can't even describe how badly his side hurts. He needs to pee and he's too afraid to move. He knows he has stitches – he can feel the needle holes in his flesh and the way the thread pulls – but he has a sudden fear of ripping them open and bleeding out all over the floor.
He must move anyway, some involuntary motion, because he feels Davies stir under his hand.
"Mr Davies," Bradford croaks. Oh, now he needs a glass of water too. He clears his throat to try again, but then Davies is sitting up, then standing, then apologizing. There are holes in his uniform, probably from shrapnel. He's holding his hat with both hands. The expression on his face seems to indicate that he thinks he did something wrong. "Why are you apologizing to me?"
Davies' mouth snaps shut. "I. Uh. The doctor didn't want me to stay. I should go back to my own bed." He turns to leave. Bradford suddenly doesn't want him to go – it’s very comforting to have him here among all the strange faces in other beds. Bradford would not have thought he'd be so desperate to not be alone, or that he even could feel alone surrounded by other people. He's gotten too used to being with his company, with his own men.
"Please. Stay." He reaches out, grabs Davies' hand. Surprise flashes across Davies' face. Bradford does not let go. "Just for a few minutes. Tell me if we reached our objective or not." Tell me how many more of my men are dead.
"I don’t think so, Captain," Davies admits. "We had to fall back. We retreated to the trench." He shrugs. "I went to the first aid post and the medical officer sent me on to a dressing station. Captain Harris must be in charge now."
"So he's still alive."
"I think so. I don't know. It was total chaos, Captain."
"I'm sorry."
"Now why are you apologizing to me?" Davies almost grins, and then seems to remember that it isn't exactly regulations to joke around with one's company commander as if you were equals. "I, um, Captain – it's been a long day."
"Yes it has. Thank you for coming to see me. I expect they'll send me on to a base hospital. I have a feeling that the wound in my side is worse than I think." He sighs, which makes his side flare unexpectedly. He winces, suddenly breathless with pain. He can feel his heart racing. The bandages over the wound feel cold and wet and sticky. Davies looks concerned. "Would you be so kind as to bring a doctor or an orderly over here? Thank you." Davies hustles off.
Bradford closes his eyes and tries not to think about what might have happened to him to hurt this much. Did the bullet break his ribs? Did the doctor not sew him up that well after all? How could he possibly be in this much pain?
Davies returns with a nurse who looks harried and bloody. She almost looks as if she's been fetched from a slaughterhouse.
"I think something's wrong," Bradford manages to tell her. She flips the covers back and they can all see that his bandaged side is red, bleeding through the gauze. He wants to faint. He never would have thought the sight of his own blood would make him so wobbly.
"Step back," the nurse says to Davies, nudging him out of the way and calling for an orderly. She unwraps the bandages, makes a frustrated face, and yells "Miss Chaplin! I need your help over here!" Another nurse appears, pushes Davies out of her way, and bends over Bradford's bed. "I think he pulled his stitches. I can't see. It shouldn't be bleeding like this."
Bradford grits his teeth as she pulls the bandages off.
"You'l have to leave, sir," the other nurse – Miss Chaplin – tells Davies.
"I'll be ok," Bradford adds, because Davies doesn't look convinced.
"I'll try and come back later, Captain," Davies says, "unless they send me back to the battalion."
"Now," Miss Chaplin says firmly, grabbing him and bodily turning him towards the tent door. He goes.
But he never does come back, because Bradford is taken back to surgery – the nurses have to find an orderly to help carry him – where they discover that floating bone fragments from where the bullet broke some of his ribs, as well as the jagged edges of the breaks themselves, are causing more damage than the doctor had anticipated. This necessitates another surgery, and as soon as Bradford is stable he's put on an ambulance train to the coast, and from there loaded onto a ship bound for home, and less than a week after he was shot, he's back in London.
This time he guesses that a good chunk of what he remembers is a distortion of the truth or a dream, because he knows for certain – because the nurse who went with him told him so – that for half the train ride he was delirious with pain and a spiking fever, and the crossing to London was so rough that he spent half of it being sick. He is never so glad to reach dry land in his life.
His parents and sister come to see him in the army hospital – Amelia even brings him flowers – but as soon as he can get out of there and go home to his parents' house, he does. The hospital is much more sterile than anyplace at the front, and he has no doubt he's getting the best care possible, but all the same, he doesn't want to be around all these wounded men. They are giving him nightmares, and after he wakes in a cold sweat for the third night in a row, terrified out of sleep by dreams he can't remember, he has a chat with his dad who has a chat with the doctors.
It's still some time before they discharge him. But when he can finally leave, his father makes arrangements for follow-up appointments and any physical therapy Bradford might need, and then he is very carefully bundled into a taxi and driven home.
words: 1943
total words: 38,846
note: i am seriously making up all the medical stuff as i go along, altho it's true that sometimes wounded men would be sent back to england, rather than a base hospital in france, to heal. and then as soon as they were able, a lot of them were sent right back to the front.
