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You'd only just wrestled Dick away from the fiery view of Eindhoven and into the foxhole when Lipton arrives to drag him away. Something urgent about some Private.
Alone, for the first time in days, buried in a dark hole in the ground, you suddenly get the shakes. The burn on your forehead from the bullet starts throbbing and you almost drop the canteen your fumbling fingers refuse to grab. There is only one gulp of VAT 69 left and you hold it in your mouth -- feeling the burn on the back of your tongue and in your throat as you swallow. You tell yourself dead men can't feel that.
By the time Dick returns you are huddled against the foxhole wall, clutching your knees to your chest to stop the shaking. You have been telling yourself over and over that the bullet hit nothing vital, that this hole in the ground is not your grave. He hovers over the foxhole for a second and looking at the angular features shining white in the moonlight --" smears of dirt only accent the bone structure -- your first thought is of Charon. Your hand is halfway to your pocket to dig for coins before he jumps in beside you and the warmth of his body reminds you that this is Dick, not some boatman come to take you where you belong.
He's tired -- the lines on his face betray how much he feels each of today's casualties and dislikes the biter taste retreat leaves in his mouth. You think you should be helping him but the dead can't help the living. "Van Klinken didn't make it," he tells you, rearranging his gear and settling next to you hip against hip. You nod, unsure how to tell him that maybe you didn't make it either.
"How's your head?" Before you can respond he takes your head in his hands and turns it to look at the mark on your forehead. Your shaking ceases at the moment of contact. His fingers are cool on your skin and his breath hot as he bends over to look closer in the fading light. He smells of sweat and dirt and somehow still of the soap he shaves with and you resist the sudden urge to bury your face in his jacket. "You were awfully lucky, Lew."
"Good 'ole Nixon skull," you joke, knocking on your head for emphasis. "Hardest heads in the East." You pick up your helmet and start playing with it -- absently poking your finger in and out of the hole the bullet made, occasionally feeling your own head, trying to find the matching hole. "I think my father was ready to die of shame when I joined an infantry division."
Dick looks a bit confused. Surely his parents, Pennsylvania Dutch with a strong sense of honor, couldn't have been more proud of their darling boy.
You slip too easily into the haughty New England accent your father loves. "A Nixon doesn't fight wars! He profits from them! He builds boats and runs factories. He sits behind a desk and decides where troops should go. He doesn't serve with the common men, doesn't dirty his hands with rifles or sleep on the ground. Doesn't risk his own skull." A bitter chuckle escapes your lips as you toss the helmet at the opposite wall. "I keep wondering if that bullet had been just a few inches to the left what he would say." You don't ask Dick what he would say if it had happened.
"I'm sure he would be proud of all you did. And that you died a hero," Dick tells you and in his voice you can hear the conviction with which he believes these words. You can only shake your head at how different his world is from your own.
Talk strays to the day's action -- what went wrong and what to do next. Who was wounded, who was killed and who is still missing. You don't know all the casualties -- not all are from Toccoa and with all your time in regiment you didn't get to know all the replacements. But each name still sends a shiver down your spine and you wait to hear your name on that list.
Months, and too many casualties, later you can raise a glass and bitterly announce "oh well, wasn't me" when you are one of the few to escape a crashing plane. But you are not yet hardened enough. Not bitter enough to accept avoiding a death that found others.
You don't expect actual sleep to come tonight -- it seems impossible to believe you'd actually wake up. But you try. And you hold carefully still when Dick, thinking you are asleep, reaches out a finger to bush against your forehead and whispers "Don't ever die on me, Lew."