the good die young - part 2

(tw: description of injury and filth)

By the time the sun could be spotted on the horizon, every soldier in the pit was up and running about. Usually, after months of no activity on the field, they could afford to let most of them sleep in. But not this day. Not after what had been found in the woods.

Ryan and Carl had come scrambling back, both wide-eyed and stumbling over their words. At first the superiors were fuming at their audacity, not only sneaking out in the middle of the night but waking the whole camp to announce their misdeeds. They cursed and spat at them, so caught up in figuring out what terrible punishments they could dish out, that they nearly didn’t even hear what the two privates had to say. When Carl and Ryan finally managed to get their point across, however, they both quieted.

The ruckus had woken every private left sleeping, and not until they had all come to witness the event did one of the sergeants speak again. Sergeant Ross; the rugged, gruff, grisly type. He had ordered both privates to ‘shut their big mouths and get lost for a bit’, not even bothering to give them anything to do. Just stay quiet and stay out of the way while they handled whatever there was to handle.

So they went into the forest again, but the other direction this time. Toward the traps they had set up to catch rabbits and other small game, and that was where they found themselves now. Neither spoke, neither remarked on finding the traps empty. They didn’t comment on how there were hardly any crumbs left of their supplies, or that most of the animals they could hope to catch had likely migrated by now. They didn’t even state that Sergeant First Class Wilson was pig-headed and obstinate for forcing them to stay here even as resources were running out. It was a week’s journey to the nearest village. It was a village they had ransacked and a village whose port they’d burnt, but still a village. Though the people there were sure to condemn them and attempt to drive the pests away, it was better than starving.

When the last trap was checked–empty–Carl spoke. “We need to get out of here.”

Ryan didn’t look up at him, only reset the trap with cold indifference. “Yeah, no kidding, Sherlock. Nothing gets past you, huh? It’s not like the other privates are about to start eating each other. I’m sure they would have, too, if Sergeant Howard let them out of his sight for a minute.”

“No, not out of here,” Carl gestured around him. “I meant out of the pit. We need to get to the sick-camp.”

Ryan looked up then, his indifference now replaced by incredulity. “Why on Earth would you want to go there? Don’t tell me you’ve given up already? Sure, cholera and tuberculosis or whatever it is they have over there would be a quicker way out, but there’s still a chance for us.”

“Think about it, Ryan,” Carl insisted. “Nothing’s happened out here for two months, and now suddenly a dead soldier shows up in the woods just outside our camp? What are the odds they found our camp and sent one soldier? My bet is he and the rest of his buddies, however many, found the other camp first. The medics managed to fend them off but a few slipped away. So, he stumbles over here, injured, and bleeds out in the woods. How else would he have gotten there? Corpses usually don’t spawn from the ground. I need to see Frederick, he could have gotten hurt.”

Ryan stopped for a moment, pondering. “Frederick? The… blonde one? Omen?”

Omen was Frederick’s callsign, but Carl could never find it in himself to refer to his friend as anything but his name. ‘It’s a bad omen, when they start sending the pretty boys to fight our battles’, the recruiters had snidely remarked when they first laid eyes on him. Carl’s callsign, Buster, didn’t come with such a glorious backstory. He had fallen the first week and busted his lip, and from that point forward his new nickname was set in stone. “Yeah, that one,” he confirmed.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but Frederick was on the receiving end of the shrapnel equivalent of a giant blender. He’s already injured. If he was anywhere near an attack I doubt they could have done anything to him that would worsen his condition.”

Though it was a good point, it didn’t soothe Carl’s worries. If anything, it heightened them. “Another reason for me to go see him.” Though Ryan was reluctant he, as he often did, sighed and relented.

***

The first camp, though far from pristine, was no worse for wear than when they’d left it a couple weeks ago. The sun was high, but as all of the remaining medics were seen rushing in and out of one tent they felt confident enough to approach the second one. From inside they heard a faint wheezing sound of an injured lung, but the lack of footsteps or other reassured them that the coast was clear.

His hair, that once was blond, had been stained a deeper brown by various types of dirt and grime. If you looked close enough you could see some crusted splotches of dried blood, either from himself or his now dead comrades. The same could be said for his skin. Though Frederick, with his bronzed complexion, had always been darker than Carl who himself was quite pale, the contrast between them now was jarring. His skin was covered in a thin but sturdy layer of gray which Carl could only guess was a sort of dust, light enough to engrain itself into his very pores. Only the areas around his wounds had been noticeably scrubbed clean.

But not much more positive could be said about his wounds. They were worse than what Carl had imagined when he heard what happened. His leg wasn’t only torn up. Underneath the now jagged fabric of his pants it was hard to tell how much was left of it. Other than that he also had a nasty-looking gash across his chest which no one seemed to find important enough to mention to him. Since his hearing couldn’t be saved the medics hadn’t bothered to clean the blood from his ear, either. Yet Frederick smiled when he saw them enter the tent.

“Took you long enough, huh? I was beginning to think you’d never find time in your unimaginably busy schedule to come see me. And you as well, Hulk? Can’t say I expected you, but the more the merrier, eh?” he smirked, showing off his teeth. They were still whiter than Carl’s even after so much neglect out in the wilderness, but a few had been knocked out. Likely from the blast.

“Did you hit your head, Omen? Last time we spoke you were as prickly as barbed wire, now you’re suddenly happy to host me?” Ryan answered with an unbothered smirk.

It took a few minutes of shameless gawking but eventually Carl was able to get past his friend’s condition and stepped forward. “Did you hear? The dead soldier in the woods?”

Frederick’s smile faltered then, and he stared off at a corner of the tent where the fabric had been torn and was now fluttering with the wind. For a few seconds he was lost in thought before his eyes landed on them again. “Nah. They don’t tell me very much these days, the medics aren’t very chatty. Shame, really. I’ve been trying to impress on one of them the importance of her letting me see her more often. For my mental state, really, but she only blushes and scuttles away whenever I try to hold civilized conversation.”

“I’m glad to hear that not even a deadly explosion can steal your attention away from your womanizing ways,” Carl noted teasingly.

“You know me better than that, old buddy. Wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t sweeping the ladies off their feet, would I? Though if you’re here to snoop about some soldier, I did overhear two people outside the tent a couple nights ago. Sounded like Sergeant Ross and Sergeant Moss talking about some mysterious note. Maybe something they found on the body?”

“Sergeant Moss?” Carl couldn’t help but inquire. There was no one on their crew with that name that he knew of, and he would have known. But Frederick only chuckled.

“Yeah, Private Jones coined it when he was in here with me before he got sick and was moved to the other tent. Mossy Sergeant Wilson and his inferior bootlicker Sergeant Ross. Ross and Moss. Don’t let them hear you call them that, though. Can’t guarantee your safety if you do.”

A little smile tugged at Carl’s lips, despite everything. “Ross and Moss, huh? And they were talking about a note?” He glanced back at Ryan, who seemed equally intrigued judging by his leaning forward with a furrowed brow. The last note they would have received would be along with the last shipment, two months ago.

“Yeah,” Frederick nodded. “Two, in fact. Something about a message connecting to something.” He tapped his left temple lazily. “Couldn’t quite make it out.”

Carl nodded to Ryan, who nodded back. The situation had been getting out of hand in the camp these last few days, and if their superiors were keeping something secret it was worth finding out what.

(i would would like to clarify just to avoid confusion; as far as i understand sergeant first class-ranked people are usually just referred to as just ‘sergeant’ in speech, so that is why frederick calls him ‘sergeant wilson’ though he was said to be a SFC earlier. feel free to call this out if i'm wrong though)