Birdy

cheery and telling me it’s not too bad and I’ll be up and around in no time. I’m hating him. He makes out a ticket and wires it to my field jacket. That must mean something. I begin to relax. I’m a package now to be handled by other people. I don’t have a rifle, I don’t have a helmet. I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m a sick person. Somebody else comes over, rolls up my sleeve, and gives me a shot. I feel myself slipping away.
    The next thing I’m being jiggled and moved from the litter onto a black operating table. A doctor smiles down at me with clean hands, a clean white coat and splatters of blood on his glasses. He looks at my tag, then starts to scissor off my clothes down to where I’m hit at the top of my leg, in the groin. He cuts off the bandage and I can feel him pressing with his hands. Somebody else is cutting and pulling off my boots and the rest of my clothes. I feel like a little boy. Nobody’s undressed me since I was four years old. The doctor turns to me and smiles. He’s tired. It’s been a red-letter day for surgeons.
    ‘We’re going to put you to sleep now and clean this up a bit. Don’t be scared, it’ll be all right.’
    Hell, I’m not scared; I want to be put to sleep. I want the whole medical corps to come and try themselves out on me. I want them to keep me in hospitals to practice on for five years, or however long it takes to get the crazy war over. I’ll do anything to keep people from knowing what I know. I’ll do anything to keep out of combat; if it means getting cut up by doctors in hospitals, that’s great with me.
    When I come to, I’m on another litter, a padded one, and I’m covered with a blanket. My face is practically smothered in bandages, my whole hand and wrist are bandaged. I reach down with my good hand and feel that I’m bandaged from my belly button down, but my cock and balls are still there, squeezed out between the bandages. There’s a tube coming out of the end of my cock. I lie back and relax. They’re not going to be able to give me a rifle for a while anyway.
    I feel like I’m on a moving stairway, an escalator. Even the smell of ether is good to me, a smell of security, of calm and of peace. I look around and realize I’m not in the field hospital anymore. There are rows of us and we’re in a big room. I lift my head to look around and I can’t believe what I see. There’s a woman in a uniform and she’s coming over to me. I haven’t seen a real woman in months. I’d forgotten how good they look. Think of it, I’m going to be able to go home where there are women and I’m not going to have a dishonorable discharge. I’ll probably even get a pension and people who don’t know will think I’m a hero. I’ll be able to fuck all the women I want. The lady stops and squats beside my litter.
    ‘Are you all right there, soldier?’
    I see the lieutenant’s bar on her cap. I can’t open my jaw and I talk through my teeth.
    ‘Yes, sir. Where am I?’
    ‘You’re at division headquarters and we’re waiting for an ambulance to take you back.’
    ‘Where will I go back to?’
    ‘Probably to the hospital in Metz.’
    I lie back. They haven’t found me out yet. If I can get as far as Metz, they’ll never get me in combat again.
    ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’
    As she says this, she’s looking at the tag pinned to me. It’s longer and more official-looking; I’m special delivery now. I wonder if it’s still the same day. It seems like weeks since we left the forest and went down that slanted field toward Reuth. For just a minute I think of the war still going on. Who’s head of thesquad now? I could’ve made staff if I’d stayed on. Did they finally take Reuth? I stop thinking about it. I’m rear echelon now; let the boys at the front do the fighting. The lady lieutenant is finished reading my delivery ticket.
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry. It says here you have a stomach wound. You can’t have any liquids. I saw your face and I thought that was all of it. I’m sorry.’
    This must be the first time I’ve ever had a lieutenant sorry for me. I pull my bandaged hand out from under the blankets to drum up a little more sympathy, but she’s already on to somebody else. If she can’t serve me coffee, she doesn’t want anything to do with me.
    I lay my head back and try to remember the reality. I want to remember how lousy a soldier I really am. I don’t mind fooling everybody else but I don’t want to fool myself.