Chapter Text
Dennis Whitaker remembers the exact day he enlisted. It had been a particularly terrible one.
Between being basically disowned – you should pray for those men, not join them! –, immediately having his request to be a part of the infantry denied, and instead, with a quick physical and background check, being assigned his role as a field medic and being thrown up at by a very nervous 18-year-old-looking soldier, Whitaker had decided that maybe this whole thing hadn’t been a good idea at all.
Three months later, he still thinks the same thing.
His hands are soaked with blood, and his legs are burning from all the running; his ankle feels like it’s been set on fire, but he can’t stop. Every single time he slows down to catch his breath, the agonizing sound of someone yelling “Medic!” with such intensity that their voice becomes rough after the first two shouts ring through Whitaker’s ears, even as they hurt from the explosions, one after the other, and he sets off again. Jumping over debris and praying not to be hit by a bullet or turned into bits by a shell – he very much prefers his body in one piece – Whitaker sprints towards the cry for help.
Somehow, the next scene is always the worst one.
Whitaker drops to his knees at the wounded soldier’s side, scraping his knees in the process if the burn on them indicates anything.
“Hang on, Milton!” who now has an open hole on his chest. The man – Milton – was behind something when he got hit, otherwise there would be no saving whatsoever. No one until now had survived a clean shot through the chest. Fuck. Whitaker shoves his hand inside his aid bag, already searching for any gauze he has left. “Saunders, rip his uniform! Use the scissors!”
While he barks orders to the person next to him for necessary support, which is immediately obeyed, Whitaker also conducts a quick analysis of the situation. Milton seems to be breathing fine, albeit erratically due to the pain, but nothing too extreme. The possibility of collapsed lungs is slightly low. Whitaker hopes it has missed his heart, too. The hole is bigger than what would be expected, probably due to shrapnel from Milton’s cover.
“No matter how sleepy you get, don’t go to dreamland and… well, don’t follow the light? We are going to get you out of here.” Whitaker grabs his sulfa, ripping it open and sprinkling the white powder all over the wound. Wasting no time, he fiddles for his gauze and uses it to start applying pressure, hoping to cease the bleeding. “I need a jeep!” He yells even knowing that it was too risky, the road being constantly under attack.
“Shit hurts, Doc! Jesus fucking Christ.” Milton groans, and his blood doesn’t stop pouring out from the wound, spreading itself and permanently staining the pristine white of the gauze’s fabric, like what a terrible sin does to an untouched soul. Whitaker presses even harder, his fingers turning white.
Should he start praying?
“I know… Saunders, morphine!” The younger soldier scurries back to them, eyes wide and panicked. Whitaker would feel bad for the kid if he had the time.
“Wh-where, Doc?”
“Tigh, half of the syrette. If there are any breathing problems, too much morphine can worsen them!” With his fingers already dripping blood, Whitaker marks an ‘M’ at Milton’s forehead using his index, so whoever treats him next knows to be careful with morphine dosages. “Eyes open, Milton. I got you, I’m right here.” Whitaker tries to soothe his voice just as he saw his superior, Dr.Robby, doing once while he visited their aid station for a supply run. Where Dennis was awkward and unsure of how to comfort his brothers in arms, Robby seemed to know exactly what to say and how to say it.
Whitaker takes one hand off the injury and tries to look for any plasma left inside his bag. He knows he has none, because he had to use all he could on a bad shelling, but he just… feels like he has to hope for a miracle that some new bag of plasma has just spawned inside of his bag, and so he keeps searching for it. Needless to say, the miracle doesn’t happen. Before returning the full efforts on stopping the bleeding, Whitaker gives some light little slaps on Milton’s cheeks, the soldier already threatening to fall asleep.
“Eyes open. C’mon!”
“Don’t pull this shit with your elders, Doc. Give me the full thing, I’ve always wanted to know what it's like.” Milton’s voice is weak; he is blinking slowly, and it’s too much effort. Whitaker takes his eyes off his newly obtained crimson gloves for a second to offer the soldier an awkward smile, and takes a look to check if Saunders is following his instructions. He is. Good.
Truth is, Whitaker admires Milton. The guy lost so much weight to be able to join the paratroopers. He was denied four times but never gave up, and after trying for so long, finally succeeded. There wasn’t a single soldier in their platoon who had something bad to say about the guy. Milton never really mentioned why he wanted to fight alongside them so badly; he just mentioned he had a wonderful woman to conquer a little bit more every day, and that she liked adventurous men. And besides all that, Milton was just a nice person who should be with his family, cracking jokes at his wife, and not dying in a stupid attempt to secure bridges, trying to end a whole war before Christmas.
And if Milton had also been the first soldier to take Whitaker under his wing, that was something for only Dennis to take notice of.
“Sorry, no can do. I want you breathing.” Whitaker can feel the viscous liquid running through his fingers. There is barely any green left on the front of Milton’s uniform. The medic curses under his breath and changes the gauze. It doesn’t help; the blood seeps right through it in less than two minutes. Not good.
Behind him, Whitaker can still hear the cries for help. He closes his eyes for just a miserable second and allows himself to hope that Santos has the rest of them covered. He knows she probably does. This whole jump was a mistake. Whitaker knew it the moment they had given the order, and since he had landed on a terrible spot, his ankle still suffers from it, but he can’t and won’t let that slow him down. – because there was no way an operation involving three different battalions to secure bridges, which would be made in a three-part drop instead of just one, was not set for failure. Whitaker let himself believe, during the first three days, that maybe he had been wrong and it was in fact a very good decision, but then the communication failures started, following the supply drops shortage, and the idiotic incapability of the Allied intelligence to detect German tanks. As a result, the British airborne battalion kept failing to secure the Arnhem bridge, and Whitaker gave up that hope altogether. Now they had lost more men than Whitaker could count, aside from the fact that German resistance didn’t seem to consider stopping anytime soon. It is hell.
His thoughts are interrupted by the blessed sound of the jeep coming their way, and he could kiss the driver if that didn’t get him immediately court martialed and punished by God, but he wouldn’t even have time to do so because Whitaker can’t fucking take his hands from pressing on the injury. As soon as the vehicle comes to a halt near them, Saunders is already with two other soldiers helping the medic set Milton on its back.
‘Please, God. Make them see reason, we can’t win this one.’ is all Whitaker can think while he watches the front lines become farther and farther away.
Whitaker feels numb. His hands, now covered in dried blood, move automatically from box to box, grabbing any type of medical supplies he can stuff inside his bag, for him and for Santos. Whitaker knows they’re getting low on basically everything, and even though it’s not really difficult for them to resupply now and then, it’s very much preferred that their trips to the aid station are kept short and not as frequent, so he can now kill two birds with one stone.
Milton was taken away by Dana a few minutes ago, with nothing but a worried glance coming from the nurse, surprisingly not directed at the fallen soldier but at Whitaker himself. The medic is not really sure why.
It’s a relief as much as a burden whenever he gets to see the older woman. Dana is like an angel, pressing chocolate bars on the palms of her precious field medics’ hands when no one else is looking, or offering one too many lucky strikes, a gesture always welcomed. At the same time, whenever she is the one to be called, it means that things are considerably worse than what they’d like. So, as soon as he turns his head and sees Dana approaching once more, uniform stained with fresh blood, eyebrows pitched, frowning, and someone trailing behind her –no, not someone. More specifically, their battalion surgeon, Dr.Robby – Whitaker knows Milton had stood no chance.
Something must show on his expression, because it’s Robby who takes a step forward and places a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head slowly from one side to another. Usually, that’s Dana’s job. She talks to the medics, Robby talks to the higher-ups, and writes letters to the families whenever he can. The heat from his superior’s hand goes straight through the fabric of Whitaker’s khakis, filling his cold body with a warmth that feels a lot like comfort, something that Whitaker should not be receiving right now, as he is not Milton’s family and had ultimately failed to save him. Whitaker forces himself to swallow the bile that threatens to rise in his throat. ‘You have no right, no time,’ so he tries to numb himself once more. Milton is not the first person Whitaker has lost, and he will not be the last. He can’t let this one get to him just because this time he was close to the guy.
“Sorry, Whitaker. Milton was already going through hypovolemic shock. Once we got to him, we tried everything we could, but the damage was far beyond anything in our reach.” Robby has that stern expression that reveals just a little bit of concern and is the right amount of apologetic; his hand stays steady on the medic’s shoulder.
Whitaker doesn’t deserve this. He should never have been chosen as a medic, because even if he could make the right decisions from time to time, he still felt so useless. At the end of the day, Milton had died with no nice words, no last laugh, no prayers. Whitaker had done nothing to make this easier for him, and one more soldier had been taken by the hands of a war none of them wanted to happen, protecting something way bigger than themselves, giving up their lives for the well-being of the World. How cruel was it to put someone in such a position? Why did God allow something like this to happen?
How could the guy who started all of this hell be alive when Milton wasn’t?
“Oh. I- He was talking, just before we… the jeep, sir. I had no plasma.” He can’t move; he wants to cast his eyes down, stop staring at Dr.Robby, but he really can’t move.
“Not your fault, kid.” And Whitaker wants to cry, or to laugh. Both, probably. At the same time.
“Not a kid anymore, I’m afraid.” He can’t help but say, widening his eyes when remembering exactly who he was talking to. “Sir.”
And Dr.Robby smiles. A part of Whitaker feels a certain relief at the easy-going response coming from his superior. He and Robby are not strangers to each other since Santos hated to leave the front lines, always coming up with a hundred and something excuses as to why it would be a better idea if Whitaker were the one making the short trips, and he had the slightest suspicion that it had something to do with proving herself to… well, everyone really. A woman serving as a field medic was unheard of before Santos and her two best friends decided to cause chaos until they were allowed to join the Airborne, with the condition that they had to become medics. Whitaker never learned the details of what happened; he only knows that, as a silent punishment, Santos, Mel, and Javadi had been assigned to different divisions and platoons.
That had directly influenced his relationships with the aid station crew. They saw Whitaker’s face so frequently, carrying the most beaten-up soldiers, always covered in grime and gore, normally with his bag already empty or close to it, that they had given him the nickname of bloodhound. Due to some very unfunny cosmic joke, he was always the one to run towards the worst cases or be handed them by Santos.
That also ended up with him being, more often than not, led by Dr.Robby from place to place around the aid station, always with a guiding hand in the form of a very steady grip on his shoulders. So, not strangers.
Whitaker blinks a couple of times and realizes that this is actually what’s happening right now. Just how out of it was he? Dana is already gone, and Robby’s hand never left Whitaker’s right shoulder. It just moved slightly, so it would be more comfortable to guide him. He knows this because of the heat; somehow, the cold crept immediately every time the battalion surgeon retreated his slim fingers from Whitaker’s uniform. Slowly, Whitaker turns his head so he can look at the side of Robby’s face.
He can see some lines here and there, around his eyes and nasolabial folds, showing the natural process of aging. What is not natural, though, is that Robby is something between thirty-eight and forty years old, and at that age, people shouldn’t look so… drained. Whitaker is almost sure that some weeks before, those lines hadn’t been so prominent.
“Sir?” Whitaker’s voice, thankfully, doesn’t shake. Somehow, he doesn’t shake. It feels like it would be the right body reaction at the moment.
“You need some rest.” That's all his superior says, which makes Whitaker’s neck hot with embarrassment.
“No.” He frantically shakes his head, tries to turn his body to really look at Robby, but the man doesn’t even spare him a glance, and instead, his grip strengthens. “I – Look, it’s fine. Sorry, I spaced out. It won’t happen again, but Doc. Santos needs supplies and support, we’re los– in a tight spot right now! Sir…”
Robby raises an eyebrow, thoughtful, while they continue walking. Whitaker can’t help but notice every time he sees Robby, how, besides the appearance of aging lines, the Lieutenant Colonel’s eyes seem a little bit more dull, like all of theirs, he supposes. It’s just that there is a tiredness to his gaze that doesn't really plague the combat medics, because no matter how exhausted they are, their eyes are always alert, and they never seem to lose that edge of panic. Whitaker suspects it has to do with the breaks between Robby’s shifts, when he has to fill in paperwork instead of managing the medical staff. That’s when the reality of their situation really kicks in, because just then, there is time to reflect, to remember. That is also why Whitaker can’t, for his own sanity, stay at the aid station.
Also, when you’re constantly being pumped up with adrenaline, you start to miss it once it’s taken away.
“Have you ever heard of shell shock, Whitaker?” The question catches him by surprise. Whitaker tightens his hold on the aid bag, and he can’t help but be offended because there is just no way Robby thinks he is that weak.
“I think we all have…” He casts his gaze away, at some poor motherfucker who had gotten his leg blown off. He hadn’t even noticed they were passing by the triage beds. Normally, Whitaker would be more aware of his surroundings, but the aid station was like a haven to him, and with Robby nearby, he felt far away from the claws of imminent death. Well, that really is the safest one could be in the middle of a war, excluding the hospitals, of course.
“It’s one thing to have soldiers suffer from it.” He stops on his tracks, so Whitaker finds himself with no other option but to do the same. Robby is looking at the triage: assistant medics walking from one bed to the other, assessing the damage, doing their best to stop someone from dying or going into shock, others already moving those who would be sent to the hospital, their expressions more than exhausted. It was a different kind of battle altogether. There were no nurses to be seen, the aid station being always too close to battle made it impossible to bring their womanly comfort to those who desperately needed it, even Dana was nowhere to be seen, she was friends with one of their battalion commanders, having then pulled a few strings to be allowed at their aid station.
“It’s another thing entirely to have medic staff breaking. Don’t think we are immune to it just because we, technically, have less of a chance of being hit. You are under just as much stress as the others, if not more.” He continues, squeezing the other’s shoulder carefully in an assuring way, and Whitaker can’t help but feel ashamed, for multiple reasons. He knows he looks younger than he is and that he shows too much on his expression, or that his awkwardness around others is not essential for the situation he is in, but Whitaker never thought others could see him as… breakable. “Medics are also human beings, Whitaker. We have to be stronger, yes, but we’re no use if we fall. It’s ok to need help.”
Whitaker knows this because training a soldier is way easier than training a medic… that knowledge doesn’t help at all. He feels his body grow colder, even if the point of contact with Robby’s hand refuses to follow the same path. It’s almost too much, yet it would be highly inappropriate for him, a T-4, to deny a gentle gesture of a Lieutenant Colonel. So Whitaker tries his best not to make a big deal out of it.
“I’m good.” His voice wavers, followed by internal curses to himself. Whitaker pats his bag just to have something to do with his hands. He gives the place one more look over and turns his head back to his superior. “You’ve seen me, sir, carrying people almost blown in half, with missing pieces. I-I can handle it, Milton was… an exception.”
Robby just looks at him, and he retreats his hand, immediately crossing his arms over his chest. One of his eyebrows is raised in a silent invitation, more like an order, for Whitaker to continue. The cold immediately takes over the place where Robby’s touch once was, leaving no place for warmth, and Whitaker has to fight really hard to suppress a full-body shiver.
“I made a mistake and allowed myself to get close to him. Milton was just… easy to get along with. I’ll be mindful not to let it happen again, sir.” Whitaker doesn’t know where the need to over-explain himself to Robby comes from, but it’s always the same thing. Whenever he visits the aid station and has the opportunity to take a short walk with the Lieutenant Colonel, Whitaker finds himself babbling about every thought process he’d had before treating the soldier that had been brought in.
It has always earned him a satisfied look, a nod of approval followed by ‘you did well, ’ sometimes a pat on the shoulder, and a few new ideas of field treatments. It was nice, it made Whitaker want to go back to battle, just so he could, maybe, on his next trip behind the front lines, be rewarded with more endorsement. So, on top of having lost Milton, there was also the terrifying feeling that Whitaker had let Robby, and Dana… oh God. Dana… down.
They resumed their walking a few seconds after the medic’s admission. Both of them are side by side, and when they reach the abandoned, now turned into their aid station, church’s exit, Robby holds the door open to the side so that Whitaker can go first. He, obviously, does. It’s quiet for a moment. Dr.Robby rests his hands inside his khakis’ pockets, and Whitaker starts getting restless. He is aware there is ongoing action still, just a few meters up front as he can hear the explosions going off, and the thought of Santos needing backup but not having any is sincerely freaking him out, and yet… he just wants to stay at the aid station, where he can count on Dana and Robby to guide him and tell him when it’s ok to stop.
It’s not the first time he thinks about begging Robby to change his role for once and for all, to allow him this one act of mercy to just stop being the one to find those poor boys, because that’s what most of them are, just boys blinded by the idea of doing something so fucking important. And they should have the opportunity to listen to nice words and a soothing voice instead of whatever nonsense Whitaker had to offer, with his mind way too preoccupied about taking the best course of action, creating a lack of bonding as a consequence. His fear of getting too attached also didn’t help at all. At the aid station, at least that was not needed; he could just fix the problems he was able to, do the triage, and send the men away.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing to get close to your brothers in arms.” Robby finally breaks the silence. His expression doesn’t give much away; it’s a little disconcerting at times. “You don’t have to forbid yourself from doing it.”
“No, sir. But it gets to me, if I do end up… getting attached.” He is nervously rocking his body back and forth, from his heels to the tip of his toes. “I still learn all of their names, replacements or not.” Robby hums and fishes for something in his pocket, pulling out a box of Lucky Strikes and taking one to his lips. He doesn’t lighten it right away.
“You are human, kid. Not a machine, and guess what? Human beings feel things.” His voice comes out muffled since he is holding his cigarette between his lips. Robby sighs and finally lights up the Lucky Strike. After a moment, smoke swirls up towards the sky and disappears with the wind. “But you have to know how to feel and still be able to function; balance is everything.”
“Is this how you do it? Balance it?” When Robby quirks an eyebrow in confusion, Whitaker quickly tries to explain it further. “Uhm. It’s just that, you’re so… humane? With everyone. I mean…” He taps a few times on his aid bag once more. “All of them are so stern. It’s do this, finish that, and no understanding. The higher-ups. Most of them at least.”
And Robby laughs. Sometimes Whitaker’s stupidity is worth it.
“I suppose so. Can’t lie to you and say that I take much notice, I’m already used to it.” He takes another drag of the cigarette, releasing the smoke shortly after. “That’s how they have to be, get too soft and no one listens to you. I’d say you have this idea of me because our encounters are rather quick. My assistant medics would disagree with you.”
“No way, sir… You’re something like our commander. He is serious when he needs to be, but never unkind to his men. It’s just… the others, who are never around much. It’s rubbed on me, I think. How they just want to get the job done smoothly, no… being a part of it to their core.” Whitaker wants to shut his mouth; it’s not something you reveal to your superior, but his body hardly obeys his wishes.
“Like seeing us as pawns. It must hurt less if you only see numbers, statistics, when you eventually make a wrong call… just like this one.” He squeezes his eyes shut. God, he should just stop. “If you just do your job and don’t really care to make it easier for whoever is on the receiving end.”
When there is no answer, Whitaker dares to pry his eyes open, and Robby is looking directly at him. His face has a funny look, his mouth is set in a straight line, the cigarette is no longer between his lips, but now between his index and middle fingers, his eyebrows are pitched up, and a frown is making its way to his forehead. Robby seems… worried. Whitaker fucked up, he knows. He should never have said outrageous things about his superiors.
“Sorry, sir. I didn’t… I know they have to be like this, it’s not a judgment.” He is already looking around for a quick escape when he sees the same jeep that brought him in being turned on. Again, he could kiss the driver. “I have to go. My ride is leaving. Thank you for your hard work. Tell nurse Dana I said bye!”
And without waiting for an answer, Whitaker is already running towards the vehicle.
“And was he ok with you shitting on our superiors?” Santos is sorting through the supplies, dividing them equally between both aid bags, while Whitaker just watches the line of the low woods and tree lines from inside their improvised foxhole, wondering how many German soldiers are hidden in there. He tries not to look towards the empty and now destroyed houses they find themselves between, as they seem haunted. Vaghel has certainly been a pretty market town once. The counterattacks have stopped for the time being, so their division takes whatever moment they have to reorganize their minds and everything else that matters.
“I wasn’t! And…I don’t know?” When Santor turns around to him with her arms open in a huge question that somehow calls him an idiot in between, he rolls his eyes and shrugs. “I ran to the jeep before he could say anything.”
“Without waiting for dismissal?” When Whitaker keeps quiet, she barks out a laugh that earns them a scolding from their platoon commander. So, Santos lowers her voice, but continues nonetheless. “Jesus, Huckleberry. You’re fucked.”
“Wow, thank you.” Whitaker crosses his arms and sulks. He keeps watching the trees, now maybe praying for a bullet to do a clean job, instead of whatever punishment he’d get for being borderline insubordinate. He frowns, suffering internally, “It can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, it’s… Dr.Robby.”
“Shit, I don’t know. He is pretty rough, or so I’ve heard.” When Whitaker finally turns his head in her direction and raises an eyebrow, Santos has her head slightly down, but she is looking up at her partner, and her mouth is showing a faint smirk that makes Whitaker’s face contort in a grimace. “ His assistant medics have contradicting stories about the man. Not everyone is lucky enough to be buddies with Dr. Robbinavitch, Huckleberry.”
“As if… Maybe you believe all this gossip because you don’t even go to the aid station.” He casts his eyes down and goes through the new supplies, now equally shared between the two medics. “This should do for… what? Two days if we’re lucky?”
Santos accepts the subject change; she will try to wiggle her way back into it, eventually. Whitaker is aware, and she is also aware, but he’ll take whatever break he can get from her questioning and judgmental gaze.
“Yeah. Something around that.” She sighs and finally readjusts her position inside the foxhole, squeezing her eyes due to discomfort. “Fuck, this has to be ending. There’s no way they haven’t realized we lost.”
Whitaker is quiet for a moment. He raises his eyes to the dark sky and searches for something inside his aid bag. He feels so tired it clings to his bones like a disease that refuses to heal, and yet, he knows he’ll be getting almost no sleep as he never does whenever they are on the front, which is basically every time. The bags under his eyes are permanent by now, and he is almost welcoming the tiredness as an old friend.
“They’re just… not ready to admit it.” He finally finds his rosary. Whitaker plays with the beads, and it feels too much like heresy. His hands are still dirty with blood, and yet they touch something so holy. The blood is under his nails and stuck to the lines of his hands. He believes that it will never completely come out. Whitaker tries to run from the thought by counting as many stars as he can see. “The British are still trying in vain; everyone knows it’s over. They’ve had too many casualties.”
Santos is quiet. The air is heavy with the knowledge that it’s a senseless fight at this point, and men are dying for absolutely nothing because their command is too proud, like dogs with bones. Whitaker thinks about Milton. About how he died on September 21st of 1944, five days into the start of the Market Garden operation. A few hours before all of that happened, Whitaker had gone to check up on him, and the soldier had cracked stupid jokes, always so optimistic. Whitaker thinks about Milton’s wife and how she would never be conquered by him again, because Milton’s adventures had come to a definite end.
When Whitaker feels his throat start to close and his eyes to prickle and sting, he squeezes his rosary in between his hands. The prayer comes to his mind easily, like a routine.
“O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” His voice is weak, quiet, almost a whisper, something intimate.
He knows Santos has heard it, and even though she says that God has abandoned them all, Whitaker is not blind to the fact that the girl takes comfort in those words; it’s why he allows her to hear it every night instead of reciting the prayer quietly inside of his head like he used to. Whitaker is aware they are fighting very different internal battles, but he has also strangely come to the conclusion that they’re more alike than any of them would like to admit. So he shares these intimate moments with her.
On September 25th, they received the news that Operation Market Garden had officially failed at Arnhem, with the remainder of the British Division finally retreating. However, the 101st Airborne Division did not have the same luck. They’d stay and hold the road they had taken.
Whitaker would never forget the look of pure hopelessness that plagued the expressions of the men around him. Or the contained anger on Santos' face.