That Old Dream 1.1

My Dream, like many others, was to get to a place where they would write my name on my guitar, so I could step out onto the stage with the whole world being mine. Not in some off the black ink like my momma did before I ran away after the destruction of my father’s guitar. I wanted that real, plastic ivory looking stuff that they lay over the fret board before sitting someone in front of a camera for a publicity shot.

That was My Dream.

No matter the cost.

At least, that’s what I thought when I was young.

-

Korea - 1952

“I came here to entertain some horny soldiers and get shot at by an invisible army. I didn’t come over here to say someone’s final rights to life and be a grave digger.”

“Well, Della, you’re the only other religious person that seems to exist in this inferno of a camp.”

“That might be fine to say in your heart, Father, but it doesn’t mean that much to me.”

Della Darling, the singing and dancing cowgirl from the Carolinas, had never doubted herself so much as in this moment. Her hands were pressed against a dying man’s throat while a priest stood nearby in fake robes and a surgeon from the nearby unit held his own hands further onto the shrapnel torn chest. The sighs that came from under his breath met with the prayers of Father Louis. Della tried to keep her calm with a concentration split between three different people and to express her own feelings on the situation, only one appropriate word existed.

“Fuck.”

Dropping such a word, in public, back home might have meant the end of her career and the end of her life. In the two years that she had been touring around overseas, though, the word came into a fashionable and easy use.

That was the one thing about soldiers.

They didn’t give one.

Father Louis looked down to her from this conversation with God to say, “Agreed.” He quickly wrapped his beads back around his bloody hands, going through a seemingly rambling sets of prayers, but clearly it had an organization to him.

That response to her cursing certainly wouldn’t have gone like that happened back home. And the bullets practically whizzing past their heads continued to be a horrible sign, no matter how quickly the surgeon tried to work. Della thought about his name for a moment before remembering that she had just arrived at the new hospital unit, giving her a chance to meet the priest and no one else. So far, Father Louis had been good conversation, but he wasn’t the bed mate that she was looking for among the doctors, nurses, and corpsmen.

Della’s count of the base personnel was distracted by another grunt from one of her companions and the kneeling man on the ground saying, “Damn it! We could have saved him.”

The statement was followed by a final grunt from the surgeon who fell backwards onto the snow, causing the blood on his coat to seep into the snow. The soldier they had been working on had finally slipped away and their blood escaped further into the snow, reaching for the soil beneath the packing. They all sat back as some of the bandages, previously held by manual pressure, fell off the body. Some of the other gauze pads stayed in places where there was more blood and grizzle and broken bones present.

“Fuck,” the nameless doctor said, stealing Della’s trademark line.

Father Louis moved from beside her and leaned over the body, making a final prayer that Della heard but pretended not to understand. Her gaze was too busy focusing on the surgeon lying in the snow, the one seemingly intent on letting the frost bite overtake him. The captain’s arms were spread out and his body was further sinking in the snow bank to create a bloody snow angel.

Della moved to squatting behind him, lifting the captain up by the shoulders, and asked, “Can you get up, Captain?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. The environment is a little bit too cold for anything to be able to come to life.”

She struggled to pull him up from the snowy grave, but managed to bring out some of the strength from her childhood days. The country girl brought him forward to his hands and knees, watching as his gaze traveled to someplace on her body below eye level. In that moment, there was a temptation to let the man fall back into the snow bank that she had just risen him from. But like all of the other temptations she had resisted in Korea, Della managed to steer away from this one too.

“Now that is far from what I meant, and you know it.”

“Yes Ms. Darling, but you have a certain reputation over here in the MASH units. Maybe not back home, but anyone and everyone here, no matter their gender, would love to have a night in your tent.”

Father Louis finished one more round of prayers and helped Della to pull the captain all the way to his feet. Dragging him to the jeep was a chore, especially with all three of them looking back to the soldier on the ground. As they lifted him into the passenger seat, the cowgirl noticed a wound right above his shoulder.

“Captain, I think we need to get you back to the camp as soon as possible,” she said while pressing a new gauze pad against the torn flesh. “Father, I need you to put pressure on this gunshot wound for the trip back.”

The priest seemed to sense her plan, climbing into the back of the jeep behind the surgeon, wrapping an arm around his chest and holding the bandage in place with his other hand. Della had to toss around in the back of the bay to find a beaten blanket, wrapping it carefully around the second injured soldier of the day. She tucked it under his legs, giving her own silent prayer that she wouldn’t have to see two men die in front of her in the same day.

“That’ll work,” she mumbled to herself. Della wasn’t quite sure what to do from now except for driving back to the camp at the highest, safest rate of speed possible.