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Buck lay awake in a new bed in a new barracks staring up at the metal beams that constituted a ceiling. There was no use willing himself to sleep tonight, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. And he knew he wasn’t the only one who’d be lying awake all night.
They’d lost nine planes that day. Nine planes with three good men in each. It was almost half their fleet. It was the greatest single loss they’d encountered since joining the war front. He’d been in one of the surviving planes, bullishly confident as they all had been that it’d be an easy mission dropping off some bombs on Nazis on the way to Algeria. Instead, they were bombarded by enemy shelling. He'd been under attack before, but he felt like he'd never seen so much carnage in the air.
It wasn’t until he’d landed that the severity of the loss began to set in. He watched the sky with the few others who'd made it and waited for the remaining planes to arrive on base. Some of them touched down all right while others showed up in poor shape, until abruptly they just stopped arriving. The airmen had all witnessed planes being shot down, but everyone still held out hope for one more plane to come straggling in. And Buck, especially. Just one more plane. Just Lt. Curtis Biddick’s plane. But no more planes touched down.
And then it became nightfall. And then it was time to eat. And then it was time for sleep. And it was clear that Curt wasn’t coming back.
It did him no good to try and put Curt out of his mind. There was nothing else to think about. The young blue-eyed Lieutenant had become inextricable from his life almost as quickly as he entered it. He was his right hand man. The only one in the whole military institution that made him feel some semblance of home no matter where he was. And so it was Curt that was the comfort he went to bed thinking about every night and it was Curt he would spend the night thinking about tonight.
There was a conversation they’d had one of the times they were alone that had bothered him then but assailed him now. He and Curt had snuck off into the cover of wilderness like they'd made a habit of doing, the wild the only place they could shake off their rank and the shroud of war all together. They could be alive and real and honest and carnal, two bodies together—naked or clothed, entangled or apart, it didn't matter—those moments together were almost freedom. This had been one of those naked and entangled moments and it left Buck feeling moony and idiotic afterwards. He’d fully dressed straight away, but Curt lay there resting on his elbow, lounging unclothed. He looked so blissful and beautiful resting in the grass, it reminded Buck of a work of art he’d seen in a museum.
“You look like a painting,” he said, fully aware of how corny he sounded but not caring enough for that to stop him.
“Oh yeah?” Curt asked and flicked his gaze to meet Buck’s. “Any particular painting?”
Buck nodded. “In London. Botticelli’s Venus and Mars.”
“Botticelli, eh?” Curt said, sounding out the name to emphasize its meaninglessness to him.
“We’ll go together next time we’re there,” Buck said.
“Yeah, next time,” Curt said and swept his hand along the grass beside him.
“And after that, when this is all over, we can travel the world. We’ll see so much art that it gets boring and then we’ll settle down in a little house Stateside,” Buck said.
Curt smirked and looked down at a piece of grass he was twisting in his fingers. He exhaled a small soft laugh and shook his head.
“Is it so far fetched?” Buck said. “I don’t want to have a life without you. When the war is over—”
Curt rolled his eyes.
“What?” Buck asked.
“There is no ‘when the war is over.’ This is it. These fleeting moments of us hiding in the forest are it. I’m going to die up there,” Curt pointed to the sky, “You’re going to die up there. Every last one of us is getting blown to bits.”
Buck was shocked by his cynicism. He’d seen the darkness in Curt before, his readiness to throw a punch at a crooked glance, his disregard for discipline, but this was more than darkness. It was hopelessness. He couldn’t fathom that idea. He was certain they were going to win the war. He had to be. The fact that Curt didn’t share that confidence had felt at the time like a failure on his part as a leader and as a companion.
But now, the memory of Curt's words felt different. He had been right. At least about himself. Maybe about everything.
Warm, angry tears spilled from the corners of his eyes. Why did Curt have to be right? Why couldn’t he have been the one who was right?
He imagined Curt up in the air with Dickie and Best. Had they been shot, exploded on impact? Or had they crashed? He hoped it was fast. He hoped Curt never saw it coming. He imagined the plane damaged, Curt doing what he could to stabilize or land while his own conclusion played in his mind. I’m going to die up here. Did he think that was the moment? Did he know it? Buck hoped he hadn’t. He hoped that Curt had determination to make it out alive. That he’d been able to envision a future worth living for and fighting for—like the future that Buck envisioned and clung to of the two of them in peacetime in America as war heroes admiring art and living in a little house, scathed but together. If it wasn’t real at least it was something beautiful to think about at the end. He hoped that Curt had that.
He thought about how it was never real, that Curt was always doomed to die this day. That the fantasy life he needed to dream about had always been just a fantasy. It was no more real yesterday or the day before than it was now. So he let himself dream of it again. One day the war would be over and he’d be back home in the States. Somewhere warm. Florida sounded good this time. In a house with a view of the ocean, himself and Curtis Biddick side-by-side.