And the Snow Fell

"Fire Mission. Grid Mike Four. Danger Close. Grid Mike Four, Danger Close," I screamed, rolling into the small ravine and pulling Calder with me, except he was pushing me down in front of him.

"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?"

"Grid Mike Four," I screamed. "Fire on our position. Grid Mike Four," and thunder surrounded us, hammers beating the ground and it was like being inside a drum as some crazed musician beat the crap out of it and I was on the rocks at the bottom of our little ravine screaming and Calder was on top of me as waves of fire and a storm of steel swept over the top of our position and as soon as it stopped I was crawling back up again and Calder was crawling back up there with me and thank god the radio was still working and nothing had landed in the ravine with us.

"Fire Mission. Grid Jericho Nine. Fire for Effect. Over."

"Jericho Nine. Over." And the artillery thundered mercilessly and I burrowed into the ground and scanned for the next target and around me the rifles began to fire sporadically again and something hit Li and blew his head clean off in a spray of red that I saw for a second.

On and on and on and whenever we spotted the Ratdogs forming up I called in the fire missions and our artillery cut them apart, sliced them and diced them and an hour before dawn a stray shot blew Calder's brains out and spattered them across my face and all I did was wipe them off with one arm and use him and Young for cover while I called in the next mission and called one of the guys to take over the M-60.

"On the way..."

"On the way..."

"On the way..."

On and on and on until the grey light of dawn began to lighten the night sky and around us, nothing moved. Nothing at all and even the artillery had fallen silent because there wasn't anything moving to call it down on and then I heard the skirling wail of the bagpipes from above us and out of the darkness and the smoke they came, moving forward in sudden rushes, waves of soldiers with the green, white and blue patches of the Second Republic's National Liberation Army on their shoulders and we were still alive and only Calder and Young and Li and Kagan had died and a couple of the others had minor ones.

The bagpipes wailed and droned as the men moved past us and we looked at them with that same thousand yard stare I'd seen so many times over the last few months but now it was my face wearing that stare and I sat on the edge of the ravine surrounded by the smell of death and stared as our men moved down the valley and Brad was there, and a platoon from his company and then our tanks and armored fighting vehicles were coming down the valley, engines rumbling, diesel in the air, a long slow column winding downwards.

"Brad." I was in his arms, my arms around his neck and I was crying with relief because I'd never thought I'd see him again and he was here and Jesus, I was gonna go to Mass and just say about ten thousand Hail Mary's or something.

"I love you, Brad. I love you I love you I love you," and yeah, okay, I was just about hysterical but you gotta look at it from my point of view. The bodies around us were piled up so's you couldn't walk on the ground and they came to within a few feet of our little ravine and there were hundreds of them all around us. That was just around us. The valley was filled with bodies and here and there, men were standing, hands raised in surrender and for once we were accepting their surrender because there were just so damned many of them giving themselves up.

"Jenny," Brad said, and he was just about crushing me he was holding me tight and his faces was buried in my hair. "Jenny."

"You get them back up the pass, Captain," someone said from beside us, and I glanced around and it was a short bird with a few troopies around him and they all had the same look that Calder'd had. "My men'll take it from here. You and the Lieutenant and your men here, you've done your part. Get back up there," and he was gone, loping down valley with his escort and Brad was with me as we climbed back upwards and the morning sun shone down, bright and yellow and warm and Brad was holding my hand and the guys were looking at us and grinning and Maddock was smiling.

Top of the pass and we staggered up, exhausted and all I wanted was a shower and sleep and food and I had no idea which order because that artillery still pounded in my head and Brad led me over to the field kitchen tucked down below the crest and it wasn't anything fancy. Tinned beans, rice and some dehy chili sauce that was okay when you gave it a good splash of tabasco and I ate it like I hadn't seen food in weeks and I sure felt like I hadn't.

All the time we sat on the ground eating the ratdogs shambled past, an endless column and they were going into a wired-up pen that'd been slung together and there were more and more of them.

"We gotta deal with them?" I asked Brad, and I leaned in against his shoulder.

"Nope, they're gonna send 'em back, process them back at Combat Group, they got the men to deal with this many."

"Be hard work for us," I said, yawning.

"Yeah, Montoya made the arrangements, we'll start loading 'em on the trucks this afternoon."

"Good," I said, and I really needed a clean uniform and a wash or a wipe down or something because I totally stank. Dirt, death, high explosive, blood, other stuff and I didn't want to know what it was, pee, because I did, I stank of sweat and pee as well as everything else. "Don't spose there's a field shower?"

"Nope," Brad said, grinning. "But come with me, honey. I got something for you."

So I went with him and our orderly tent was there and set up but it was empty except for a tarp on the ground and one of those inflatable mattresses we'd lifted way back when from a Walmart. That, and a towel and...

"You didn't?" I squealed. Yes I did, and I smiled and clapped my hands too. "Brad!"

"It was Mendoza," he said. "Told me you'd want a good cleanup when you got back."

Okay, I heard that and I wanted to just hug Mendoza but she wasn't there so I hugged Brad instead, because oh boy, half a dozen boxes of wet wipes? Just total bliss.

"Hey, Brad," I smiled, and I was just totally alive and when he turned round and saw me standing there naked, the look on his face was just something else.

"Yeah," he said, and he was looking and his reaction, well, it was beautifully visible.

"Thanks for the Field Expedient Shower," I said, totally deadpan, using one wetwipe to wipe my boobs and his eyes tracked that movement. Something else kind of tracked that movement too.

I grinned, dropped the wipe, took those two steps across the tent to him and unzipped his combat pants, reached for what was inside and found it, stroked it and my heart just danced because last night I'd been so sure I'd never see him again.

"I think it's time for a Field Expedient Fuck," I purred and I'd let him go and I was undoing everything I could reach that he had on that I could undo.

"I gotta go shake the snake," Brad said, a long time later, smiling lazily at me.

"You go," I said, just about purring as I rolled off him and reached for the wet wipes because I was going to have to use them all over again now and I didn't mind that one bit. "I'm gonna throw something on and go grab some chow because I'm starving."

I was and I didn't give a damn if I looked like I'd just spent an hour in the sack with Brad, because he was my husband and it's not every morning you get to live when you expected to die and I couldn't stop smiling and he was smiling back.

"See you in the chow line," Brad grinned, kissing my nose. "I love you, Jenny," and he was reaching for his shirt and tunic and carrying all his battle rattle in one hand and all he was wearing was his trousers when he unzipped the tent and stepped out and there was this craaaack and his feet kinda flew into the air and there was this thump and I knew that thump because I'd heard it so often and there was that horrible sick awareness that this wasn't good.

"They got the Captain," someone yelled and Jesus Jesus Jesus I was out of that tent in my cammies, my tunic unbuttoned and I didn't give a crap because oh shit, Brad was on the ground, limp, a pool of red spreading out from under him and he wasn't moving. He wasn't moving at all and I hit the ground, scrabbling for my first aid pouch and Jesus, there was blood everywhere and I rolled him onto his back.

"Medic... medic..." Screaming at the top of my voice and pulling everything out because I was a nurse and I could do something and what the fuck, how could I plug that hole because it was huge and how come I could see red grass through that hole and why were his eyes staring like that. Staring at me so blankly and "Medic... medic..." I was trying to stuff that hole with something and why wasn't there blood coming out? Why didn't he say something?

"Brad... Brad..." I was shaking his arm, slapping his face and the Medic was there, next to me and someone else was lifting me outa the way and I was screaming and crying and trying to get to Brad and the medic knelt upright and looked down and all he said was "Fuck. Fuckit fuckit fuckit," and I looked again and Jesus, he hadn't been wearing his body armor and that bullet 'd gone clean through his chest and taken out his heart and there wasn't anything much left to pump blood.

I looked down at his face, my mind gone blank and all I could think of was that we'd made love just now, just a few minutes ago, and he'd said he'd meet me in the chow line and that he loved me and now he was gone and I knew he was never coming back to me.

"How?" I asked blindly, and I could barely stand because Brad, he was dead. Dead and gone and he'd been so alive and smiling at me just a minute ago.

"It was one of the prisoners in the cage, ma'am," one of Brad's troopie's said. "Musta hung on to a rifle and taken the shot."

"Which one was it?" I asked, pale, shaking, sick, because Brad was dead. "Did you get him?"

"There's two thousand Ratdogs in there behind the wire, ma'am," he said. "No idea which one and no-one in there'll turn him over. They're hiding him."

I looked, and some of them were laughing and one gave me the finger and I looked and that sickness inside me turned to black ice, and I smiled and knelt and kissed Brad because I knew he was on his way to Valhalla or wherever it is warriors fighting the good fight go when they die in battle and I stood and I didn't even bother doing up my tunic. I just walked straight over to the nearest guard post and the three Guard troopies there had one of the newer M-60's and Maddock was right behind me and so was Roskill and so was Metler.

"Out of the way," I said, voice as cold as a winter glacier, tapping the gunner on the arm and he moved without thinking and I cocked the M-60 and flicked the safety.

"Hey," the gunner said, reaching for me and then he stopped, because Roskill's muzzle was in his face and there was that sound an M16 makes when you cock it and that gunner froze, and then he backed away real slowly.

Me, I knew how to use an M-60 because Brad'd had one of the old guys teach me and that ice burned bright inside as I lined it up and somewhere in there was the guy that'd shot and killed my Brad and if they thought they could hide him from me, they were about as wrong as you could be and I eased back on the trigger and the M-60 flamed and I hosed those rounds into the Ratdogs and I smiled as they screamed and it was like a hose, that's what it was.

A hose, and I was washing away the evil that'd killed my Brad and I watched them go down and I swept the barrel over them, side to side, watching them fall and I felt nothing and all I could think of was that he was somewhere in there and he was gonna die and if they all had to die so that Brad's killer died, well, that was the price they paid for hiding him and as long as I got him, that was fine by me.

"Keep her fed," Maddock's voice would've frozen hell and her M16 was pointed at the second gunner and her safety was off and her finger was on the trigger.

"Jesus, I'm on your side, Sergeant-Major," the gunner said. "Point that thing somewhere else will 'ya?" Maddock did, sort of, and the gunner kept me fed and that M-60 was rock solid and if Brad was going to Valhalla or wherever it was warriors went, he was gonna surf in on a wave of blood. A tidal wave of blood and me, all I could see now was red as I held that trigger down and swept the sights left and right, left and right and the bodies fell in windrows and I was death incarnate and I was paying a housecall.

Death scythed the Ratdogs down and every single one of them was gonna die. Every. Single. One. They did. They died. They died screaming. They died running. They died charging the wire. They died with their backs to me, trying to climb over each other. They died with their hands in the air. They died lying on the ground trying to hide behind other bodies. They died kneeling and begging and screaming for mercy but there was no mercy, not this morning.

This morning there was only blood and death. Gouts of blood and body parts as those machinegun bullets ripped and tore at flesh and bone, more merciless than any wild animal, exploding heads, ripping through torsos, chewing bodies apart, arms and legs whirling through the air, and that enclosure turned into a growing pool of blood and motionless bodies and beside me, Maddock was firing as well, pouring rounds into the pen and more and more of Brad's troops and mine had joined in, and they were all pouring rounds into the seething mass of bodies and now grenades followed.

Dark objects whirling through the air. Sudden explosions, pools of space opening, only to be filled immediately by others attempting to evade death. Death came for them regardless. Death came and took them in his embrace, and they did not go gently into that good night. They went screaming, terrified, gouting blood and body parts, ripped apart by those terrible machinegun rounds and the bullets and the grenades, on and on and on until the barrel glowed and nothing moved and I fired on and on and on, working over the bodies.

"They're all dead, ma'am," Maddock said. "Bastards," and one hand was on my arm and the other held her M16 and the muzzle smoked. Her voice turned gentle. "They're all dead, ma'am. You can stop now," and the M-60 ceased firing because the gunner 'd stopped feeding me and out there, in the enclosure, nothing moved and there was silence.

The silence of death, and Brad was gonna have one hell of an escort into Valhalla.

"Jesus," the butter-bar said from behind me, and his face was white. Completely white. "Jesus."

"They killed Brad," I said, and my voice was thin and high and I was gonna start screaming any second and I knew that when I did I wouldn't be able to stop and I'd scream forever. "They killed Brad."

"Jesus," the butter-bar said, and then he doubled over and puked.

"They killed Brad," I said, swinging the barrel, looking for any movement. Any movement at all because if I saw so much as a twitch I was opening up again because they all deserved to die. "They killed Brad," and out there my men were fixing bayonets and moving into the pen and the long blades stabbed down, withdrew redly, stabbed down again. Again and again and again and I reached for my own bayonet.

Maddock's hand on my wrist stopped me, an iron grip. "That's not for you, ma'am," she said. "There's no need. Leave it to the men."

"Jesus," the butter-bar said, and he was dry-retching now, on his hands and knees on the brass-littered ground.

"Come on, ma'am. Come with me," Maddock said, very softly, and her arm was around me and I went with her, staggering across the hillside and down towards my command truck and I hit that bunk behind the seats and I was shaking and crying and I wanted to scream but I couldn't and Maddock held me and the medic stabbed something into my arm and everything went black.

"Quartermaster Corps," I said, jumping down from the cab, handing over my orders and it was a week later and we were rolling south and it was one of our checkpoints just south of the Highway 20 crossover and there'd been some heavy fighting here. My mind was blank and frozen in ice and it'd been like that since I'd watched him go into his grave and the soil had covered him. "Clearance and Processing Unit."

"Got some Ratdog prisoners here, Lieutenant," one of the young dudes said. Second Lieutenant. Baby-faced butter-bar with innocent eyes and a guilelessness about him that should've saddened me because it wouldn't be there for much longer. If he lived that long because we weren't invincible. We took causalities too and I guess I was one of those now even if I was still walking and talking because I was dead inside and really, I didn't want to be alive either. "Can we turn 'em over to you to take care of?"

"Sure," I said, jumping down from the cab and Maddock and Riley were with me and I kicked the knees out from under the first one and as he hit the ground, I put a point four five hollowpoint round through the back of his neck and my boot to his back, kicking his body into the ditch and it shivered for a moment before it stilled.

"Jesus Christ," the butter-bar said, jumping backwards. "What the fuck....?"

"Craaaack." Two down and the third was trying to run but Riley butt stroked him and I put a round through his head and he did the chicken dance as I finished him off and the blood was dark red and steaming on the snow and Fujimoto's squad was doubling up and they knew their work.

The shots cracked out, one by one, my 1911 kicking back with every round and I wasn't the only one shooting now. The bodies toppled forward, falling into the ditch until there were no more, and some of them tried to run but it made no difference that they were a moving target and some cursed but they were just words and some prayed although god knows that wouldn't help a Ratdog.

Made no difference at all to me because I was still dead inside and I shot them down as they stumbled away from me or they knelt and pleaded or prayed or swore or spat and behind me, Brad still lay unmoving in the ground where I'd kissed him goodbye and over his grave, the snow still fell and he'd be cold down there under the winter ground and maybe if I was with him we'd both be warmer.

Over the piled bodies in the ditch, the snow fell more and more heavily and within seconds of that last shot cracking out everything lay blanketed in a pristine pure white and I turned my face up to look at the sky and reached for Brad's hand but he'd never be there with me again and the clean white snow fell on my face and I didn't feel any better for it and the ice inside stayed frozen.

"They're taken care of," I said to the butter-bar, and my mind was white ice as I climbed back into the cab and it'd only been fifteen minutes so we were still on schedule. "Move out."

"Jesus Christ," the butter-bar said, and in the side mirror I saw him double over and throw up and then he disappeared in the snow behind us and I wished my memories could disappear like that and Riley drove on while I sat in the back and field-stripped and cleaned my 1911 because it needed a good clean and Maddock sat next to me, her eyes closed, and maybe she was sleeping and in her sleep she looked tired.

Tired and weary and drained and I knew I had to look after them all, because Brad wasn't there anymore and they needed someone to issue the orders, give the commands, tell them what to do and I didn't want to but I knew what Brad'd want me to do and I'd just have to keep going because it wasn't like I was anyone special.

Just another National Liberation Army soldier doing her job best she could and Brad wasn't the only one that'd died. Just, he was mine and without Brad, what was I going to do afterwards?