The Old Breed

Chapter 31

U.S.S. Relief, off the coast of Peleliu

September 19th, 1944

"Goodness, son, you were really out of it for a while there."

A glaring white light met my newly opened eyes, rapid blinking, a soft curse. I felt myself slowly rocking suddenly, opened my eyes further, noticed there was a ceiling over my head, metal, more glaring lights. I tried to sit up, a hand on my shoulder, gently but firmly pushing me back.

"Relax, Marine, you're fine," the voice that had woken me said.

I groaned, closed my eyes again. "Where am I?"

"The U.S.S. Relief. We're still anchored off Peleliu. You were sent here on one of the last Higgins boats yesterday. You've been out cold since."

A ship? That explained a lot. The rocking, the metal, the lights. But where was my company? The squad? Professor? Oh shit, if I was in a hospital ship, what does that mean? Have I been hit? Badly? I sat up slightly, looked towards the voice, a man, younger than I expected, still old compared to me. Thirties, forties. An old man in a war where hundreds of men were dying before they'd even gotten into their twenties. He was balding, thick brown hair on the sides, nothing on top, and he had piercing green eyes, hard from having seen so much. His face was etched with lines, likely due to the same factors that lined a soldier's face. He had on a white smock covering a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The smock was bright, clean, surprising for the amount of blood I decided must've been around a hospital ship. Especially with taking on the kind of casualties I had seen so far.

"How bad is it, Doc? Truthful, please," I moaned, imagining the same injury as Professor's. What if I'd lost a limb? An arm? A leg? Jesus, which was worse?

"I've seen a lot worse in the past few days. It's just a pretty severe case of heat exhaustion, overexhaustion, dehydration, sprained wrist and a few small shrapnel cuts. Sounds bad but it isn't. You've already overcome the heat exhaustion and exertion, and you'll be over the dehydration pretty quick as long as you keep drinking. As for the sprained wrist, I bandaged it up but there's not much more I can do. The cuts look like they're healing on their own just fine. A few days and you'll be right as rain."

"A few days?" I asked, suddenly worried. No, I needed to get back to my unit. Those guys, Lanky, Rocky, Bishop, Nelson, they were probably still out there. In the thick of things on Bloody Nose Ridge. Hell they might be the only ones from the squad still out there. They needed every man they could get. They needed me. I knew what I was doing. I was a veteran. These guys filling in the lines were musicians, cooks, desk jockeys. They were getting killed as fast as the front line troops if not faster because of their inexperience. I didn't have that problem. I knew my weapon like a mother knows her child. I knew the enemy. I knew the ways to survive when everything was hellbent on killing me. I could kill. I had killed. I was willing to do it again. Alongside my squad. My brothers.

"Not on here, no. You've probably recovered enough to get shipped right back onto the island with my permission. Of course, I understand if you don't want to. I can push your treatment slightly."

"No," I said firmly. "I need to get back to my unit."

The doc shook his head. "I've been working with the Navy for twelve years and yet I still cannot understand the mentality of any of you. Half of you come in crying to stay here forever or go home. The other half want to get off this ship as soon as possible to get right back into combat."

I stared at him. "They need me out there. We're losing too many men."

The doc shook his head sadly again. "Trust me, I know. I've seen what's been happening. The few times I've been able to see the light of day, the smoke from Peleliu seems to have even blotted that out."