Page 4 of The Lies We Leave Behind

4

“You comin’?”

I glanced over the side of my bunk at Char, who was wearing mascara that was already leaving black smudges beneath her eyes from the humidity, and a tight-fitting red dress that clung damply to her ample breasts.

It was our day off and as usual she was itching for some action. The kind that didn’t involve dodging bullets or keeping someone from bleeding out. She’d told me once, the first time she’d donned one of her rather risqué dresses, that she could handle any wound or close call so long as she could get some male attention after to “keep the balance.” I’d never identified with a statement less. For me, the balance was survival. Both mine and my patients’. But to each her own.

“Is Mac going to be there?” I asked, watching her wipe away a bead of sweat sliding over the narrow edge of her collarbone.

If Mac was going to be wherever she was headed, I’d opt out. It never failed that the two of them always wandered off. It was fine if it was more than just she and I, but more often than not it wasn’t and I ended up getting left behind to find my own way back to base. Thankfully, we were never too far away, the nearest town less than two miles away. But walking alone was never encouraged. Day or night. Because you never knew what kind of desperation you might cross paths with.

“Nah,” Char said. “He flew out an hour ago.”

“I hope you sent him off with a smile,” a nurse called Debbie said from two bunks over.

“I always do!” Char shouted back.

I gave her a look and she had the audacity to blush.

“He wasn’t smiling that big,” she whispered and I laughed.

“You are an awful tease, Charlene Newcomb.”

“Actually, I’m quite good at it.”

“That poor man’s balls must be so blue they’re the color of the night sky by now.”

Her eyes went wide and she clapped a hand over her mouth. I laughed and rolled onto my back, trying to ignore the pleading face she was now giving me.

“Ugh,” I said, rolling my eyes and sitting up. “Fine. I’ll come. Where are we going?” I held up my hand as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. I’ll probably change my mind if you do.”

Char had a knack for finding her way into some of the dingiest little places in Luganville, the nearest town to base. But while she found diversion flirting with drunk soldiers for free drinks, batting impossibly long lashes and making empty promises, I only felt the sense of sadness hanging over the men’s heads. They laughed and joked and teased, but the laughs were hollow, the jokes often didn’t hit, and the teasing came tinged with a longing that physically pained me. There was a palpable feeling of dread among them, as though they knew their time was nearly up. They couldn’t keep narrowly escaping death forever. Not in this place.

“Should we wake Paulette?” I asked, looking at the sleeping form of our friend. She’d gotten in a few hours ago but mentioned she might want to go out if we did.

“Shh!” Char said, pressing a finger to my lips, which I batted away. “What did I tell you both? Never again. She scares all the boys away.”

She wasn’t wrong. Paulette’s sharp tongue, while sometimes warranted, had a way of turning an easy conversation into something awkward.

“I still haven’t forgiven her for what she did,” Char said, glaring at her.

I pressed my lips together. I knew Paulette did it because she was bored and looking for a reaction. She also just really enjoyed ruining whatever game Char was playing. But even I had been shocked when, during a conversation about the pains of war with three men, one of whom Char was heavily flirting with, Pauline had burst out with, “You know what’s really painful, bending over to resuscitate a patient while on your menstrual cycle.”

The look of shock on the men’s faces was nothing compared to the wide-eyed disgust on Char’s.

“I will never forgive you,” she’d said under her breath as the man she’d been talking up excused himself to the other side of the bar—and never returned.

And she hadn’t. Even two months later. In fact, she brought it up anytime she got a whiff of Paulette being interested in joining us, which wasn’t often as her days off rarely fell on the same days as ours.

“How long until we leave for whatever godforsaken place you’ve found for us tonight?” I asked, grabbing a wrinkled navy blue dress.

“You can’t wear that!” Char said, grabbing it and tossing it back into my footlocker. “It looks like it got run over by a tank. Twice.”

She opened her own locker and pulled out a pale pink number I’d seen her wear half a dozen times. If I remembered correctly, and I did, it had a neckline that dipped into the indecent territory. I’d have to wear my white Midgie cardigan over it, despite the wretched heat. With a sigh, I took the pink dress and lifted my shirt over my head, smiling as Char turned her back to give me privacy.

It was amusing to me how modest some of the other women were, hiding their bodies behind bunks and blankets. Even Char, who put her body on display as often as she could, was a bit of a prude when it was time to change clothes. I’d never had the luxury to experience modesty in my young life. It had been stripped from me, literally, by my mother, who had expected me to keep up appearances at all times and surveyed me for what she deemed “unnecessary weight.” I wasn’t allowed to bathe unattended by her until I was sixteen. Which was the age I left her house and never returned.

I caught myself, shuddering as I shoved those memories aside, and reached for my brassiere.

The establishment Char had picked out was one we’d been to before. Cramped, dirty, and loud. My heart sank as her eyes widened in excitement at the possibilities she somehow saw laid out before her. There were only two other women in the room besides us and a few dozen men, a ratio Char referred to as a “buffet of opportunities.”

“I don’t know why she gets so excited,” Tilly said on a rare night the four of us got to go out together. “She doesn’t put out. She barely even lets them get a feel. Unless of course she’s with Mac.”

“She likes the game,” Paulette had informed her. “The power of hooking them, reeling them in, and then leaving them wanting more.”

I’d found it fascinating watching the other three navigate the scene. Char was all big eyes, delicate hands touching strong arms, a push of her breasts to keep the men engaged if their eyes began to wander, and that deep, sexy laugh of hers. Paulette, plain but pretty in her own right, was usually half scowling, half amused, and scaring any man who got within two feet of her with the piercing stare she gave over the rim of her glass. And then there was Tilly. Soft, quiet Tilly, with wisps of blond hair forever falling in her face, pale gray eyes wide and wonder-filled, and blouse buttoned as high as it would go to cover as much skin as possible. Most of the men thought she was too young to be in such a place, her youthful, demure appearance giving the illusion she was closer to sixteen than twenty-six. It boggled my mind that she’d chosen the kind of work we did. Until I’d seen her in action. Tilly, despite her innocent looks and demeanor, was unfazed by blood, severed limbs, and the sound of gunfire. She was precise, noticed everything, and moved quickly.

“She frightens me,” Char said once. “She’s the kind that could walk in a place and not gain a second glance—and then blow it all to bits.”

I’d laughed at the time, but she wasn’t wrong. Tilly was a quiet force and I admired her for it—and loved having her for a bunkmate. She felt like a mystery, peeling back layers of herself as time went on. Letting us in bit by bit. I understood her more than I let on. I had my own secrets. But no one here would ever be privy to them. Mine were the kinds of secrets that incurred judgment. Oftentimes before an explanation could be given.

“I’ll get us drinks,” Char yelled over the noise, pulling me from my thoughts. “You get us a table.”

But I shook my head. Getting a seat, much less two, would require something I didn’t possess—tolerance of the opposite sex openly and thirstily eyeing everything below my jawline.

“I’ll get the drinks, you get the seats,” I said, and headed for the bar before she could change her mind.

“Whatcha want, love?” the bartender asked.

“Couple of beers,” I said, and he nodded and grabbed two glasses.

While he poured, I surveyed the room. It was a far cry from the bars I’d frequented in New York before boarding the boat for New Hebrides. It was just as loud, the men just as obvious, but while this place gave off the feel of a good time, one could see the fear behind each man’s eyes. As much as I hated it, I couldn’t blame them for their staring and obvious ways. They were men possibly on the verge of death. And they wanted to forget.

“Here you go,” the bartender said. I eyed the sudsy overfill slopping over the sides of the glasses, handed him some money, and turned to see what Char had found for us, inwardly groaning when I saw the two men who had let her join their table.

It wasn’t the men themselves that were the problem, it was that there were only two of them. Which meant when Char decided on the one she wanted, I’d be stuck trying to make conversation with the other for the remainder of the night. At least when there were three or more, they could still talk among themselves if I didn’t join in the conversation, and often did. But that wouldn’t be the case this time.

“There you are,” Char singsonged, taking a beer from me.

She made introductions and I smiled and nodded, taking a seat and surveying the situation. Clearly, she hadn’t made her choice as to which man she wanted to spend her evening flirting with yet, so I politely engaged in conversation with both men and tried to keep my eyes from glazing over as they boasted about being in battle and how many kills they’d made.

After a few hours of idle chitchat, warm beers, and lackluster flirting, Char finally called it a night, her interest in both men waning as they got drunker and stupider and we, in response, sobered and became less tolerant.

“That was...fun,” Char said as we walked back to our barracks after catching a ride with a couple of friends from base who had shown up halfway through the evening.

I made a noncommittal noise, words for how the night had gone failing me.

“I know. It was awful.” She laughed, linking her arm through mine. “Thanks for coming with me though.” I rested my head on her shoulder. As much as I dreaded these nights out, I knew she needed them. For survival.

“It keeps me hopeful,” she’d told me one night when we’d walked home after she’d had a particularly flirtatious evening. “The thought of finding love. Or even just companionship while I’m here.”

I’d nodded, understanding, but not feeling the same. For me, the thought of finding love out here would only complicate things. Would give me more to worry about. I didn’t want or need the distraction a man would provide. Not that the idea of having someone hold me after a particularly harrowing day in the air didn’t sound appealing. But knowing I could lose them within moments of saying goodbye wasn’t something I was willing to risk. I needed to keep my wits about me so that I could not only keep my patients alive, but myself as well.

Morning brought rare June storm clouds and wind, the flapping of the canvas door, whipped free of its ties, slapping against the bunk frame nearest it and kicking up the ever-present sand and dust on the floor.

Char made a sound from her bunk beside me and I looked over to see her bury her head under her pillow.

“Someone shut the damn door!” Paulette yelled from where she was huddled beneath her blankets.

“I’m trying!” someone else yelled back as several other women shrieked at both the noise and the wind causing the sides and roof to billow and snap, the netting around our beds working its way loose.

“What is all the fuss?” Tilly said from below me. “It’s just a little wind.”

But it wasn’t. This was the kind of tropical storm I’d been warned about when still stateside.

“I thought this shit only happened in the winter months!” Char shouted over the noise.

“Welcome to the Pacific,” someone said. “If the malaria doesn’t get you, the surprise storms will.”

Less than an hour later, every one of us was dressed and damp, securing what we could as rain pummeled down outside, the noise thunderous against the canvas and whipping inside in small, violent bursts through the flimsy door.

“Shit,” someone yelled as a small family of rats scurried down the center of the barracks, followed by a stream of water trickling in from a small tear in the roof. “If you have anything on the floor, throw it on your bed!”

But even that wasn’t going to be enough to save most of our belongings.

“Get to cover!” a man shouted from outside. A moment later the door flew open, a gust of wind, rain, and palm fronds flying inside as several soldiers gestured for us to get out. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

“Char! Leave it!” I yelled, seeing my friend trying to shove some of her precious dresses into a knapsack as a large cracking sound filled the air. “Go! Go! Go!” I said, shoving her toward the front of the tent at the same moment a tree fell through the roof onto hers and my beds.

“Shit!” she screamed as we ran outside with everyone else, shielding our heads and faces as sand pelted our skin. Trees bowed low, branches cracking and falling, and supplies of all kinds tumbled across the base. Beyond us, the narrow river that usually ambled calmly, bucked and thrashed, its waters rising.

“Where are we going?” Paulette yelled, her voice nearly swallowed by the rain.

But nobody answered. Nobody knew. We just kept our eyes on the ground and followed the feet in front of us.

“In here!”

I didn’t look to see who said it or where “here” was, I just went, hurrying inside a building with actual walls and gathering with my roommates and several dozen soldiers at the center of what turned out to be the mess hall.

The tables and chairs had been pushed to the perimeter of the room, and the men moved when they saw us, making room in the middle and then shifting so they surrounded us, providing cover should the storm find its way past these walls too.

Someone tapped my arm and I turned to see a familiar face as we sat on the floor.

“Hi, Joe,” I said.

“Hiya, Kate. Fancy meeting you here.”

Joe Dunning was one of the first people I’d met when I landed on the island. He was also one of the happiest people I’d ever known, despite having what my uncle called a “hound dog face” and being in the middle of a war. When he wasn’t being sent off to fight on the front lines, he could often be found with his back to a tree and a book in his hands.

“Any idea how they’re faring at the hospital?” I asked.

“Nah. But they tend to have protocols in place for these kinds of situations and the injured.”

I nodded and shifted on the hard floor, cringing as the wind whistled through the rafters and shook the doors and windows. There was a loud crack as something hit the building, sending a shudder through the beams and floorboards. Several of us ducked our heads in response.

Char moved closer to me, one of her hands wrapping around my arm as she buried her head in my shoulder. I leaned into her, taking measured breaths in an attempt to keep calm, and almost laughed. We’d all been in far scarier situations.

As if reading my mind, Paulette on the other side of me muttered, “If I survived being shot at just to be killed by a little wind...”

But one could still die in a storm like this.

“How can such a pretty place be so terrifying?” I heard a voice whimper. My mind instantly went to another pretty place I’d once lived. A place others thought looked like a fairy tale, but they had no idea of the nightmares that were incurred there.

The door flew open, causing several people to shout out in surprise as a gust of wind and rain whipped through before the door banged closed again on its own. In response, three of the men carried several collapsed folding tables over and set them in front of it.

It lasted for hours, many of us growing weary and curling up on the floor, our bodies, covered in a film of sweat from the humidity, pressed together nonetheless, the closeness providing comfort.

It was nearly three in the afternoon when I woke from a fitful nap to several voices in discussion. They sounded strange until I realized the noise outside had stopped.

“Is it over?” someone asked.

“Seems to be,” someone else said before a small group of men hurried to the door, moved the tables, and pushed it open, a beam of sunlight stretching past them.

“Holy sh—” one of them said, his voice cutting off as though the surprise was too great to be able to finish the sentiment. The rest of us scrambled to our feet.

There was debris everywhere. A jeep overturned, canvas ripped and hanging from trees, clothes, dishes, tires, weapons. Anything and everything was scattered across the base.

“Our stuff,” one of the women said. A smattering of expletives from the rest of us followed as we hurried in the direction of our barracks. But when we got there, there wasn’t much left. The tent we’d called home the past few months was gone, its wood base cracked and splintered in several places. The bunks that were left were on their sides or in pieces, mattresses scattered or gone, and most of the footlockers were either overturned or missing.

I held my breath as I ran to where my bunk had stood only hours before, but was now a pile of metal, scattered on the floor.

“Do you see my duffel?” I asked, but no one answered and I scanned the mess around me, searching for my bag.

“Look!” a woman named Winnie shouted, pointing toward the river, which had risen at least two feet since the storm started.

On the bank were a few of the footlockers, shoes, and a bunch of other items. Other things could be seen floating away. Several of the women hurried across the bank, gathering everything they could find and placing it all on a piece of torn canvas in the center of the spot where our home had been.

“What are you looking for?” Char asked, her knapsack with the few precious dresses she’d shoved inside clutched to her chest.

“My duffel,” I said, lifting the edge of a wet mattress. “I thought I threw it on my bed.”

“It was in your locker,” she said.

“You’re sure?” I asked, scanning my surroundings.

“Yeah. I saw you take your wallet out of it and then put it in there.”

I patted my pajama pants pocket, feeling the small billfold my aunt had bought me before I left the States. I’d forgotten I’d grabbed it in the chaos.

I looked around me again, searching for my footlocker. There were palm fronds, blankets, sheets, and clothing strewn everywhere. I knelt, shifting the debris around me while Char helped.

“There,” she said, pointing to something at the edge of the wooden platform our tent had stood on.

The locker had been knocked over and swept along the floor where it had fallen to the dirt below. I jumped down and flipped it over, exhaling at the sight of the blue duffel still shoved inside its little cubby.

“Thank you,” I said to Char, who grinned and then immediately cried out as she bent down to pick up a red scrap of fabric coated in mud.

“Oh no,” she said, holding it up. “Just look at my dress!”

“At least you have clothes,” a woman standing nearby said. Her bunk had been at the opposite end from us and everything she’d owned was gone.

“We can share,” another woman said and the rest of us nodded. “Until you can buy some new stuff.”

As the two wandered off and Char went in search of more of her dresses, I sat on the edge of the wood platform and unzipped my duffel, feeling around for the small, hidden pocket inside and the photograph tucked in its folds. Making sure no one was watching, I carefully pulled it free and stared down first at the young girl looking back at me, then at the name written on the back.

Catrin.

“Kate?”

I inhaled and tucked the picture back inside.

“Yeah?” I asked, turning to see Paulette and Tilly standing nearby.

“You okay?” Tilly asked, a wisp of blond hair stuck to her cheek.

I jumped back onto the platform and joined them.

“I’m good. Shall we help gather what’s left?” I asked, leaning down to pick up someone’s wet nightgown and a shoe.

We ate dinner as we always did, side by side with the men, each of us experiencing a new kind of weariness in addition to what we normally felt. I smiled at Tilly, who’d fallen asleep where she sat across the table from me, her head propped on her hand.

Afterward, with extra bedding supplies brought in from the men, we made ourselves as comfortable as we could on one side of the mess hall, our belongings in a dirty pile in the corner.

“Sweet dreams, ladies,” Paulette said, her head resting on a balled-up jacket.

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” someone called out in the dark.

The rest of us laughed, and then one by one the exhaustion of the day caught up with us, our breathing slowing until we were fast asleep.

We woke the following morning to the smell of coffee being brewed and breakfast cooking.

“I could get used to this,” Char said from beside me. “Think they’ll let me bunk in here permanently?”

I grinned, my eyes still closed. It had been months since I’d woken to the scent of brewing coffee and food being prepared. My aunt and uncle had started every morning with a large, leisurely breakfast.

“There’s no better way to start a day,” my aunt Victoria had said to me the first morning I’d woken in their home with them.

I’d grown used to their ways quickly, and missed them when I’d left, my new routine stark in comparison.

“Mornin’, ladies,” a male voice said, leading to several squeals of embarrassment at the state we were probably all in, and irritation at being bothered at all after a night on the hard floor.

I opened an eye to see Mac, hands on hips, looking quite satisfied with his position standing before us in all his clean-clothed glory.

“What do you want?” I asked, not in the mood for his overbearing charm after barely getting any sleep.

“I am happy to inform you all that a new barracks is being erected at this very moment, and bunks are being assembled.”

“Oh, thank god,” Paulette mumbled.

“Are there mattresses for those bunks?”

“What about clothes? I lost everything.”

“I don’t have any shoes!”

“Hey!” Mac said, backing away, raising his hands as if by doing so he could ward off the questions being thrown his way. “I just came with news of lodging. I don’t know about the rest of it. Except the mattresses. Everyone will have a mattress.”

“What about mosquito netting?”

“And netting,” he said and then turned and hurried from the mess hall.

We were a ragtag group in all states of dress as we made a line to use the facilities outside the mess hall before returning to get some breakfast. Most of us were in our pajamas, though some had managed to change into day clothes before we’d had to run for shelter.

After breakfast, we gathered what was left of our things and made our way across the base, still strewn with odds and ends, to our new home that stood where the old one had only twenty-four hours before.

“How’d they get a new one so fast?” someone asked.

“They keep spares in the supply facility,” Paulette answered. “In case they need to expand the base.”

“Or if there’s a storm,” Tilly said.

The footlockers that had survived had been cleaned off, but were now littered with scrapes and dents along their metal bodies. New lockers had also been brought in from the supply building to replace the ones that had gone missing, and dispersed so that every woman had one.

“If only I had anything to put in it,” a woman named Joan said. She stood in a pair of too-big borrowed shoes, staring at her new locker. In the rush to leave the day before, she’d forgotten to put on shoes and every pair she’d owned had washed away.

“Whoever’s in need of clothing and shoes should head to the exchange now,” a soldier called Bucky said. “Get what you can and then we’ll put in an order for anything still needed. Until then, borrow what you can from your bunkmates.”

As several of the women hurried in the direction of the exchange building, I looked to Tilly, Paulette, and Char. Our hair and clothes were streaked with mud and our state of dress was ridiculous. But most of our things, though dirty, had survived, and we would have a roof over our heads again and beds to sleep in tonight.

“We sure were lucky,” I said.

“Apparently there’s some benefit to being last to arrive,” Paulette said, referring to the day we’d shown up on base. We’d been the last to make it, and thus relegated to the last two bunks, situated at the stuffiest and darkest end of the tent. Which meant during the storm, our belongings had been furthest from the river.

I grinned, grabbed the clean bedding off my new mattress, and began to make my bed.