Sailor Boy

It was raining.
Every day was a long day at the hospital, but today seemed especially long. I only went a couple times a week, because that was all I could handle. I was sixteen. I was a child. But, I supposed, if males my age were being sent off to war, I could do something as simple as going to a hospital. If the hospital was this horrible, I couldn't imagine a battle. I hated going, but my father was insistent I did. Besides, we all knew I'd go regardless. It was the least we could do.
The hospital was full, and it kept getting fuller every day.
The war wasn't even close to being over. It'd barely begun.
"Martha." A voice said from behind me.
I turned around to see my neighbor. "Hello, Mrs. Jameson." I stopped walking to wait for her to catch up. "How's Mr. Mathis doing?" I asked solely because it was polite. I knew the answer.
"Oh, you know how it is. One day's good, one day's bad." She said lightly, even though she knew just as well as I did that her brother was dying. Most of the men in the hospital were. "Marie and Peter are going to town tonight. Do you want to go with them?"
"I... Maybe." I shrugged, but I probably wouldn't. I never felt up to much after leaving the hospital. I couldn't imagine being a nurse and having to be there daily.
"I'll send them over before they leave in case you decide you want to."

I wound up going with them to town. The restaurant we went to was over-crowded.
"Must be a new ship in the harbor." Peter said as we walked in through the open doors.
He went to get drinks while Marie and I went to find seats.
It wasn't unusual for strange men to ask to dance. Before the war it had been considered improper, but now it was wartime, and people let most social customs fly out the window. Our fathers told us we should do anything to help keep them in good spirits, as long as it wouldn't put our moral standings in jeopardy. In short, we were supposed to dance with them, laugh with them, talk to them, just not under any circumstances leave with them. In the hospitals we were supposed to sing for them, play instruments for them, talk to them, listen to them, or just sit with them as they die. Father forbade me to leave a dying man's side if he requested I stay, no matter how it affected me. Marie's parents kept her away from that at all costs, though. They wanted to protect her, and I didn't blame them. I envied her ignorance. Mother was sort of upset with Father on that account, but I never regretted doing it.
"What's it like?" Marie asked as we sat down.
"What's what like?"
"The hospital."
I felt my eyes burn, but I tried to blink the tears away. The doctors and nurses always said that if you were going to cry, to step outside.
"It's terrible." I told her.
She picked up on my internal emotions and dropped the subject.
Just as Peter was coming to sit with us, a sailor came up and offered his hand. They all knew no one would refuse them. "Care to dance, Miss...?"
"Martha." I smiled, taking his hand and standing. "And you are?"
"Thomas." He smiled. He had a charming smile.
His personality turned out to be just as charming. I found myself falling in love with him, but I wasn't allowed to make those decisions. Besides, he would probably be deployed all too soon anyways.
The key to it was to not get attached. But it was already too late.
We didn't separate until Peter said it was time to go. There was a curfew, but the curfew our parents set was even earlier.
"Will I see you again, Sailor Boy?" I asked Thomas, very casually, but not too casually.
"I'll be deployed tomorrow morning."
As I said. All too soon.
"Perhaps you should go get some rest, then." I smiled.
"Perhaps I should. I sincerely hope to see you again, my darling." He kissed my hand, then straightened up with one of his charming smiled. "Have a lovely night."
"You too." I smiled, then turned and followed Marie and Peter out.

I did see him again.
I went to the hospital, my heart armed against the pain I would witness. I stepped through the doors, and the unbearable smell of feces, urine and blood hit me. I had gotten sick the first several times I'd come, but now the scent was all too familiar.
"Martha." A weak voice said.
I turned towards it. It came from a man lying in a bed. His sheets were stained with what looked and smelled like far too many bodily fluids. They hadn't gotten around to changing his sheets yet, today. They were short staffed. They always were. Nobody wanted to be here.
It took me a moment to recognize the owner of the voice. There was a bandage around the top of his head, and the hair that showed at the top was caked in dry blood.
"Thomas?"
A smile lit up his face. "Well, if it isn't Miss Martha."
I didn't ask what had happened, but he told me anyways. His words were slurred, and he took long breaks between them. Blood came out of his mouth when he coughed.
He was dying, and I was going to have to watch it.
I sat with him all night.
His eyes were sort of glazed over by the time dawn came. That meant I could cry, as long as I didn't make a sound. He wasn't talking anymore, and he wasn't breathing evenly. His breath came in hitches every few seconds, and his exhalations sounded like it came from his chest, not his mouth.
I watched a tear slide out of one of his sightless eyes as he struggled to breathe again. His hand squeezed mine weakly.
"It's okay." I said gently, dabbing his forehead with a cool towel. "Shh..."
A priest had come in last night to give several of the men their last rites. That was one of the main reasons I didn't like to come at night. That was when the priests came.
Thomas hadn't breathed for quite a while, so I felt his wrist for a pulse, and found nothing.
I sat there for just a couple more minutes, looking at him and imagining him as he was all those months ago.
I kissed his hand and put it gently on the bed.
"Doctor." I said in a choked voice, gesturing to Thomas once I'd gotten the doctor's attention.
I ran out the door, falling down in a puddle and getting my dress covered in mud.
It was raining.