Rickie's War: North Africa

The First Day....

I blacked out entirely… I couldn’t see a thing. I thought I was dead. I thought it was over. It hurt, though, being slammed to a wall by a mortar round. I felt so weak when I felt the ground under me. I felt that I didn’t have anything left of me. I felt like dying. Jimmy was pretty much dying… and I was pretty sure it was my turn to fall this time. I’d lost a lot of friends and I remembered every single moment when I lost them. Maybe it was my turn, maybe it wasn’t. But at the moment I thought… When would I end up like them?

Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen. But as I sat on the woodwork behind me, half-blind and half-conscious, I felt that someone was pulling me up. I had been beaten up pretty bad back there, but I felt something – some extraordinary power – was pulling me up. I felt it. When I looked up, well, guess who I saw.

I saw you. You in that nice white summer dress of yours. Your soft hands and even softer fingers low on your sides, and the shape of your body nicely facing mine. I could see your big brown eyes and glaring red hair. I could see you turning to me and giving me a smile. I asked myself, between that rubble, between that smoke and dusk, whether was that really you?

I smiled at the notion, and it brought me back to the day I first met you.

June 1941, Alexandria, British Egypt

 

Commonwealth and Greek troops had recently suffered a blowing defeat. After losing the Greek mainland, the Allies retreated to Crete; in which the Allies held so valiantly despite not having any modern equipment within the island. Due to the technological disadvantage and the shortage of supplies, the Allies decided to pull back from Crete and do a fighting retreat down to the southern parts of Crete to link up with a Royal Navy Squadron there and evacuate to the safety of British Egypt. Despite having a sizable fleet on its side, the Royal Navy could not manage to evacuate all men and equipment from the island, with about 17,000 Allied troops captured. The Germans won a pyrrhic victory; a victory won at a very high cost.

Young Private Rickie Avraams, a rifleman with the Brighton and Hove Volunteers, was lucky to survive the battle. After having four pieces of shrapnel dug deep inside his left chest and shoulder, the skilled medics on the ships quickly pulled them out, giving him yet another chance to live. Exhausted, he slept for about a day, and when he woke up, he woke up at a colonial paradise.

The sun seeded through his vision as Rickie opened his eyes for the first time in many hours. He saw above and the sky was bluer than ever, and the summer sun shone. The clouds were perfectly shaped, and he could hear the muffled sound of beaches in the background. Where am I? he thought. He couldn’t lift his head, because he had tried it and failed. He couldn’t move it without having a sneering pain down his spine and chest.

He felt he was lying down on something, and then he realized there were stretcher sticks at the sides. In the top and bottom of his body, he saw two helmet-wearing men in military fatigues carrying him. They were in no hurry. Rickie tried to look around. He could never stop being curious on what was happening around him, even if he didn’t had anything to do with it.

He turned his head to the right, and saw that tens of other men like him were being laid down to be given treatment. But as he looked closer to his observations, he realized that the ones who were picked up were the ones who would get treatment first. With a bandage around his neck and shoulder, he could hardly move without any pain. His uniform had been ripped off properly, him now only wearing his undershirt. There was blood of course, but as far as he knew, the blood had stopped. The doc seemed to patch him up real good.

Before he even knew, Rickie was being stretchered over to a building. A civil-turned military hospital. In the distant rooms he could find some screaming, but the ones around him seemed fine. Some of them had more bandages than him; some of them had amputated limbs. Then Rickie remembered his own limbs and he tried to look down at his feet. He tried to feel them both, and he managed to do that. He whispered ‘Thank God.’

He then heard a female voice. “Set him down over here.”

To him, it was one of the most relieving sounds he had ever heard. He did not see the nurse, but he knew she must’ve been a beautiful woman. The two orderlies then set him down at a bed somewhere, disposing him of the unwieldy stretcher. He felt the bed was like the most comfortable thing he had ever slept in. Although undoubtedly he had slept in better beds before, this one just felt special.

Then he saw something more special. Something that stroke him back down to the ground in awe and admiration. “Hello there.” She said. She had wavy red hair, put in a bun and leaving a little bit of it to fall on top of her face. She wore civilian clothes, mostly due to the cloth was used to make clothes for the soldiers. She had an armband on her right arm, though, and the arm band had a red cross. She wore no makeup, but that didn’t stop from making her beautiful. She had a small but shapy nose and big brown eyes accompanied by perfectly sized eyebrows.

Rickie froze in his place, admiring the woman in front of him. There was something special about her, but he just didn’t knew what it was. For some reason, he thought she could be a great friend.

“H-Hello…” Rickie replied.

The nurse then said again, “What’s your name?”

Rickie released a cheeky smile that matched his words. “Yours first, miss.”

“Very well,” she gave a wide smile without the teeth. Rickie’s favorite kind of smile. “It’s Pris, but of course, you’re not supposed to know my last name.”

“Why so?” Rickie asked.

“I would love to give you my full name, but the head nurse would kill me. So what about you?”

“Mine?” Rickie chuckled. He used his unwounded hand to reach to his neck and pull out the two round metal things that were his identification tags. “Rickie Avraams.”

Pris took it quite excitingly. She looked at the tags and realized that half of it was chipped off. “They seem pretty battered… Mr. Avraams.”

“Please,” Rickie said. “Call me Rickie.”

“Okay… Rickie.” She replied. “What happened to them?”

“You wouldn’t want to know, ma’am.”

“Oh please.” She said. “Call me Pris.” She said with a smile.

Then a thundering voice came from one of the operation rooms. “Nurse! Nurse! We need an extra hand!”

Pris stopped the chatter with Rickie and quickly went on to his feet. “Coming!”

Rickie just admired her as she went about. He really hoped that this could be the start of something, but alas – she was a nurse and he was a soldier. Both would get punished if discovered.

But it’s worth it Rickie thought. It’s very worth it.

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