Chapter Text
Major Jack Kidd walks to the base hospital with a bad feeling that he is going to leave disappointed, but he goes anyway. This part of the airfield is deserted at this time of the day; everyone and their dog is in the Officers' Club, carousing, dancing, and drinking, trying to forget that some of them will see the sun rise tomorrow morning, but not see it set in the evening.
A group of three young nurses moves towards Jack, having just left the hospital. They giggle when he salutes them out of respect. Very young indeed.
He shakes his head. So, she can set her nurses free to enjoy the evening, but refuses to do the same for herself? Why? Why is she tormenting herself, still after all this time? That woman is going to be the end of him. He promised her father he wouldn’t let her work herself to death, and he is already failing before missions have even started.
Jack finds the infirmary quiet, deserted, and thoroughly clean.
“Lieutenant Reed?” he calls and marches past the front desk and the holding area, through Pre-Op and the empty sick quarters, before he finally locates her in the dispensary.
“What are you still doing here?” he inquires.
“Hiya, Jack,” the dark-haired, fairly young nurse greets him without looking up from her clipboard. She writes something down and turns her attention back to the shelves.
She is older than him by a few years, but she looks younger than her 29 years old, and he looks older than his 24, so it evens out; some people on the base have even mistakenly taken them for being engaged, which secretly amuses Jack. Having been neighbors for most of their young lives and as the youngest daughter of his father’s best friend, Jack has always thought of Jo as a cousin or even a pseudo-sister.
“Don’t ‘Hiya, Jack’ me,” he says firmly. “There are no patients in the ward, and I’ve just met the nurses you’ve sent away because there’s clearly no work to be done – so what are you doing here?”
“I’m the Head Nurse, Jack. I can’t leave before my shift is over.”
“Don’t cite the rules to me. That’s only the case when there are patients to take care of. Any regular nurse can be on standby, and you could have the night off for once, Jo.”
“And do what, exactly?” Jo asks, a hint of a frown forming between her brown eyes still aimed at the papers.
“You should at least meet the new officers.”
She scoffs. “Like you wanted me to meet the new Air Executive?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you wanna know how Major Egan introduced himself?” she says, finally looking up from the clipboard, her mouth twisting in disapproval at the memory. “He was drunk as a skunk and he went, ‘Hi, I’m Mrs. Egan’s bad boy, John.’”
Jack feels his stern expression crack. He coughs to hide his laughter.
“You mean to tell me you don’t like bad boys?”
“I know. Shocking, right?” She gives him a what-are-you-up-to look. “Were you trying to set me up with him?”
“With Bucky? Jesus Christ, no. The man’s a womanizer. Your mother would kill me.”
She almost smiles, so he should probably just keep his big mouth shut.
“But there are plenty of nice guys on the base I can introduce you to…”
“Jack,” she warns him. “Stop.”
He observes her carefully for any clues about what goes on behind her professional appearance, but she turns her attention back to the bottles she is doing inventory on, and he feels a little devastated on her behalf.
“Jo,” he begins. “It’s been a year and a half since Freddy…”
“Listen,” she sighs, cutting him off. “I have work here to do. We’ve got no idea what tomorrow will bring, and the hospital needs to be prepared for the absolute worst.”
"When does your shift end?"
"Eight o’clock. You know that."
"Right, I’ll be back at 2000 to take you to the Club, and I will pull rank if necessary."
"No, you won’t," Jo responds unimpressed. “But if you insist – “ she makes it sound like an unpleasant duty to have fun in the Club, “- I’ll meet you there. But I need to change first.”
“Fine,” Jack grumbles, secretly pleased. “But if you’re not in the Club by 2015, I’ll tell Huglin you’ve gone AWOL.”
“Perhaps I will, if you keep nagging me,” she retorts and wafts him out of the dispensary with the clipboard.
oOo
I watch Jack leave, his tall, stately figure striding through the empty Post-Op, and it is absurd to think that I used to babysit him. Back when he was a lanky boy with fluffy curls, a long, long time ago. Born John, but never called anything but Jack.
He has aged twenty years since the war started. He has never been a goofball of a boy, but now he’s chronically worried and eternally serious. It seems he intends to survive this war by saving his smiles, the same way the rest of the country rations sugar and butter.
I wish he would stop worrying about me. He has enough on his plate as it is.
He should stop worrying because there’s nothing to worry about, I remind myself. I’m working 12-hour shifts and I have the responsibility for fifteen nurses – I can’t even muster the needed desire to waste my sparse free time on drunken bomber pilots, bombardiers, and navigators in the Officers' Club.
I turn my attention back to the inventory checklist. I have already been over it two times today, but it helps my restless thoughts find some peace. I don’t want to think about tomorrow. Despite my asocial tendency, I have still talked to and come to know some of the men who arrived at the same time as I did: Colonel Huglin, Majors Veal and Bowman, and the very talkative pilot, Lt. Curtis Biddick, who I, reluctantly, must admit I quite like.
Amid this trail of thoughts, I suddenly hear loud voices outside the hospital. It sounds like a squabble. Then: “Nurse! Anyone here?”
I hurry out with the clipboard still in my hand. Before I even reach the holding area, where the wounded men will be kept until we have time to check them over, I hear two men snapping at each other.
“… swinging around a cricket bat in a crowded bar! Did you drop your goddamn marbles?” I recognize Major Cleven’s western drawl, but I’ve never heard him sound angry before.
“Jesus Christ, Buck! I did not mean to hit him!”
“You’re lucky if he’s able to fly tomorrow. You could have smashed his skull open or put his eye out.”
“Well, it’s not my fault the Brits have such sharp-cornered bats and shitty taste in ball games…”
I stop and stare at the two Majors: Level-headed Gale Cleven and his sidekick, John Egan; the tall, lean, and devil-make-care bomber pilot, who also happens to be Air Executive of the 100th Bomb Group.
Between them stands a slighter shorter, curly-haired, and long-suffering Captain, with a bloody handkerchief pressed to his forehead.
“What on earth happened?” I ask.
The Majors snap their heads around to look at me as I march over the take a look at the wounded Captain.
“We apologize for bursting in like this, Lieutenant,” Cleven speaks when I peek under the hankie; there’s a fresh cut just below the Captain’s wavy hairline and the beginning of a bruise and the blood keeps oozing out. “But we had an accident in the Officers Club.”
Major Cleven crosses his arms and shoots daggers at Egan, who scowls back. They look like two parents bickering over who’s responsible for taking their eyes off the kid for a moment at the playground, so the playtime ended in wail and tears.
Egan sighs and replies flatly: “I accidentally hit Crank in the face with a cricket bat, while I was trying to copy Ted William’s home-run swing in Fenway Park.”
He reeks of whiskey. I’m not surprised.
“In a crowded bar,” Cleven elaborates dryly in his Western drawl. “Like some sort of loony.”
“I’m all right,” the curly-haired Captain – Crank – responds quietly. “It just… It won't stop bleeding.”
“A cricket bat?” I repeat.
“I know, right?” Egan says with mock seriousness. “Can’t get a decent baseball bat over here no matter who I bribe.”
“I need to stitch you up and assess you for signs of a concussion,” I tell Crank, who nods solemnly. “The surgery’s this way.”
“Will he be able to fly tomorrow?” Egan asks as all three men follow me through Pre-op.
“I don’t know yet. Depends on how hard you hit him.”
“Well, you gotta follow through when it comes to Ted Williams.” Egan must confuse my unimpressed silence with ignorance. “Ted William is a…”
“The Boston Red Sox slugger – yes, I know,” I respond curtly. “My husband was a pretty ardent baseball fan.”
Damn. I notice their looks. I shouldn’t have mentioned my husband in past tense. It just raises too many questions.
“You new here?” Egan asks unexpectedly. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before?”
I stare at him. Cleven does the same.
”Jesus Christ, John,” the blond pilot mutters. “Lieutenant Reed’s our Head Nurse. She’s been here longer than I have.”
“Oh…”
“It’s okay,” I say with my best impression of forbearance. “You were pretty drunk when we met the first time, too, so I forgive you.”
Egan grins like a naughty boy. “She forgives me. That’s good to know…”
I pour Major Cleven a look of silent appeal: the clever Wyomingite picks up on it in a split second and grabs Egan by the shoulder.
“I think Lt. Reed can handle it from here,” he says. “Let’s go back to the party.”
“Yeah, all right… Again, I’m sorry, Crank, but when we’re all dead tomorrow and you’re safe and sound in a hospital bed, you might find it in your heart to forgive me, too…”
Cleven pushes his friend out through the doorway and the surgery goes silent.
“Right…” I look at my patient and gesture for him to sit down. “Crank, was it?”
“Charles Cruikshank,” he says. His low-pitched Bostonian accent and husky tone make his voice as raspy and soft as a woolen sweater. “But Crank will do.”
“I’m Joyce, but I respond better to Jo,” I say and check his pupils with a flashlight; there’s nothing out of the ordinary, other than the blue color of his eyes makes the sky look harsh.
“You’re Jack’s… cousin?” he says, unsure.
“In spirit, only. We’re not actually related. Our families have just known each other for a very long time.” I wet a cotton wipe with antiseptic and remove the bloody handkerchief. “This might sting a bit.”
He flinches at the first touch then swallows the discomfort with a grimace.
“Does it mean anything?” I’m asking both out of curiosity because there’s always a funny story behind the air crew’s nicknames, and to distract him from the pain. “Or is Crank just a contraction of Cruikshank?”
“It’s short for Crankshaft,” he elaborates and relaxes as I wipe around the wound, cleaning blood from his thick golden-brown curls.
“Right… that’s a motor-thingamabob, isn’t it?” I say. That’s about as far as my mechanical skills go.
A gentle smile tucks at his lips; he’s a lot cuter when he doesn’t have a face full of blood, and his soft features make him look both incredibly young and at the same time a lot older than me.
“It is. It’s the part of a piston engine that converts the linear motion from the pistons into rotational motion.”
Right, seems like I can rule out memory problems and confusion already.
“And they say women know nothing of mechanics – so why, may I ask, are you named after a motor-thingamabob?”
“Oh, it goes way back to flying practice. I had an instructor who was half deaf, and when I introduced myself, he heard my name wrong, and because he was also a bit of a mean bastard, I was too scared to correct him. So at the end of my training, everyone was calling me Charles Crankshaft, greatly encouraged by my friends.”
“Your friends sound priceless.”
“My friends are a population of morons,” Crank responds dryly.
“Isn’t that the only way they come?”
I’ve managed to stop the bleeding, so I can get on with patching him up. Captain Cruikshank sits very still as I begin, and in the middle of a stitch, it occurs to me that this is the closest I have been to a man alone, since…
I can smell his aftershave, subdued and pleasant, and a whiff of beer, and I pause, expecting a belated freeze-or-flight response from my body, but nothing happens. Crank keeps his gaze lowered and doesn’t move; he’s the very image of a good patient and I might be so deep in nursing mode that I’m able to fight it off.
“There,” I finally declare and lean back to survey my handiwork “How are you feeling? Nausea? Dizziness? Blurred vision?”
“Nope. A bit of a headache, but that’s all.”
“Well, freak cricket-bat incidents tend to leave one with a sore head. I’ll get you some aspirin so you can rest.” I try to break the following to him as gently as I can. “And I’m going to have to keep you here for observation overnight. Perhaps even longer.”
“You mean I won’t be kept awake by twenty men snoring in a cramped hot metal hut, for an entire night? Where do I sign?”
“I mean, you might not be able to fly tomorrow.”
His gentle smirk disappears behind a frown. “I have to fly tomorrow. It’s our first mission. I can’t abandon my crew.”
“I know…” I chew on my lip. “Let’s see how you feel in the morning. I’ll let Dr. Stover know he needs to give you the all-clear tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Cruikshank says. “Sorry to cause so much fuss.”
“You’re not,” I assure him. “You’re the easiest patient I’ve had since I got here.”
“But I’m still making you fall behind on your work,” Crank continues and glances at the clipboard.
“Not really,” I admit. “I was just trying to calm my nerves with something. It’s not really necessary.”
“Well, if you need to do it, it’s necessary. We all need our rituals.”
“You’ve got one?” I ask. When Crank pauses, I fear for a moment I have crossed a line, but then he continues rather determined:
“If I survive tomorrow, I’ll guess I’ll need to continue to write Frank Murphy’s mother.”
The unexpected answer makes me laugh. “Who’s Frank Murphy?”
There’s a sheepish smile curving his mouth. “Murph’s my navigator. He’s just twenty years old, and I assured his mother I’d keep him out of trouble. We’ve only met once, but she’s a very nice lady, and I’d hate to let her down.”
There’s a sincerity to his words that touches me unexpectedly.
“You don’t quite fit the stereotype of the cocky bomber pilot, Captain Cruikshank, do you realize that?”
He rubs his neck. “I get that a lot. Never quite sure whether it’s a compliment or an insult?”
“Well, there’s something for you to think about while you rest,” I smile. “I’ll get you that aspirin.”
We walk out of the surgery, through the bed ward, and into the dispensary; Crank’s gaze lingers on the empty beds, as we walk by. There are fifty of them, lined up along the wall, crisp white linen ready for what will come.
“You really are expecting the worst, aren’t you?” Crank says quietly.
“No, we’re just prepared for the worst. It’s like the opposite of Murphy’s Law: If you’re prepared for everything that can go wrong, nothing will go wrong.” I hand him glasses with pills and water. “That’s our ritual. Doing inventory three times, despite not having a single patient besides you.”
Cruikshank gulps the pills down and looks at me; he really has very blue, very gentle eyes, and I want to warn him: No one this soft is going to survive a war.
“Need help with that? Doing unnecessary-necessary inventory?”
“You should rest,” I remind him.
“I’m fine – besides you too deserve to enjoy the last quiet night in God’s know how long like the rest of us.” He nods towards the clipboard in my hand. “I happen to be quite good at doing inventory. I used to be a milkman.”
“You… really?” I say, baffled by my mind trying to picture him in the white milkman’s outfit; it’s miles from the handsome dress uniform with the shiny brass buttons and the insignias on his collar.
“For a short period before I joined the National Guard,” he says and holds out his hand for the list. “But you won’t believe how many bottles and eggs and packets of butter I counted during that time.”
“This isn’t exactly milk and eggs,” I object halfheartedly. “And I… Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I sigh, as he keeps standing there, smiling gently, palm insistingly held out towards me. “You do realize you’re proving nothing right now, other than you New England boys are exactly as stubborn and thick-skulled as they say?”
He replies with a chuckle as I hand over the clipboard, but the smile on his face turns into a confused frown, as he runs his eyes down the list.
“Are these just made-up words? What the hell is… Secobarbital?”
“Maybe I should do the counting and you write the quantities down, Captain Cruikshank?”
He does a humorous salute with the pen at his temple. “Can do.”
The dispensary isn’t claustrophobically small, but still, we are just an arm’s length apart. Cruikshank politely keeps his distance, but I still wait for my heart to start beating uncomfortably faster. The only men I trust this close to me are Jack, my dad, my brother, and Biddick to some extent. Strange men usually trigger the feeling of being choked from the inside.
Usually.
It’s the little things that make it all come rushing back. My body remembers. The smell of his aftershave, aggressively strong; the way it made him take up an entire room, even after he had left it. His hands on my skin. Dark eyes going darker… Charles Cruikshank asks me a question and looks up with boyish blue eyes, one stubborn curl, having escaped the pomade, falls over his forehead.
I breathe in deeply and say: “Sorry?”
“D’you think I’ll be able to fly tomorrow?” Crank asks.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine. The aspirins are helping.”
“If you continue to feel fine, I don’t see why not, but it’s gonna be up to Dr. Stover…”
“CRANK!” It comes without warning, a yell from the empty sick ward, and then frantic footsteps from heavy boots tramping on the floor. “HEY, CRANKSHAFT – YOU IN HERE?!”
A squarely built Lieutenant with dusty-blond curls appears in the doorway. He gives me a confused look, then the relief visibly wash over his face, as he sees Cruikshank on his feet.
“You all right?” the Lieutenant asks, and another guy, taller, slimmer, and with dark hair pops his head up behind him. “Christ, I go dancing for two minutes and when I come back they’re mopping up your blood on the bar floor! Major Cleven said…”
“I’m fine,” Cruikshank responds calmly. “It looked worse than it was.”
“We thought Major Egan had whacked your skull open,” the dark-haired one drawls in a heavy Georgian and widens his eyes. “You’ll be able to fly tomorrow?”
Cruikshank gives me a quick side glance and says: “Yup. Don’t worry about it, Murph.”
“It can’t be a good sign having your pilot in the hospital the night before the first mission, right?” Murph babbles on nervously. “I mean, that must be the pinnacle of bad luck…”
“Murphy, it was an accident. It has nothing to do with luck…”
I don’t like where this is going. There’s no one more superstitious than men whose survival depends entirely on pure luck. My conscience battles my years of medical training.
“Are you Frank Murphy, the navigator?” I ask the dark-haired guy.
He blinks and looks a little startled. “Uh – yes, ma’am?”
“I was just about to discharge Captain Cruikshank from medical observation. Can I trust you to make sure he doesn’t leave his cot until morning? The doctors will require that he gets a full night’s sleep if he wants to fly tomorrow.”
Murphy looks beyond relieved. Crank gives me a look of surprise: You sure?
“Because I will not be the nurse who sent an unfit man into war,” I reply to his unspoken words. “Do we have an agreement, Captain?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he mutters back, smiling reassuringly. I’m split equally between admiring his courage and loyalty and being worried about him so willingly taking on a task that will most likely get him killed or shot down at some point…