SAND SOLDIER
A Short Story in the Slice of Life Series
David Lee Howells
Copyright 2013
The child called Arny Woods loved the sandbox his father had made for him. It was large enough so that when his father said he did it to have less lawn to mow, not everyone thought he was kidding. Strong framed using two by tens, the box measured ten foot by ten. It was well fastened with deep bolts that took a borrowed power tool from work to install. The sand was top grade. A retractable cover from a greenhouse supply catalog helped keep out any wandering animal who thought it would make a grand litter box and, when left on during the day, had enough translucence to allow an oven-effect that helped keep weeding and grass removal to a minimum.
The box had been built well away from trees that would annually see the sand as a place to compost their dearly departed leaves, or a picture frame perfect location to sire a sister. His father was a strategist in keeping his mother from worrying about how much sun the child was exposed to. The box was placed just so that the tall evergreen hedge, well over twice Arny’s height, provided shade for a quarter of the box at the least during most of the play-day. Making the hedge-side wall of the box three times the height of the other three minimized what little needle droppage the hedge might offer on dryer months, and allowed for something of a back rest.
To make it wonderfully complete, his mother had added wisely another feature. She, too, could be strategic when the muse struck. There was a small plastic round pool that could be used to cool hot feet, and provide a sand wash for those same feet as well as for any toys that were destined to come back into the house.
All in all, what more could a child ask for? Playmates would be nice more often. There were a couple who once in a while stopped over, but it was a sparsely populated region. So if the real could not suffice, then the imaginary offered limitless possibilities as a consolation.
On his last birthday, he asked for soldiers, lots of them. He got them. Four bags of ten each from his parents, and one bag of same from each of the four party attendees. It was a soldier-themed party, and each child was given a plastic green helmet (mothers liked that it provided high sun block factors for the heads and faces). Five children played with eighty soldiers in the dunes and trenches of the box. Toy boats were conscripted as ocean-crossing transports. Arny had the northeast barracks. Twigs snapped from the hedge provided a brake of trees for his troops to shade in. Scott commanded the south east. Dead branches were broken up to provide outlines of roads, battle barriers, and squared off areas whose purpose shifted depending on whim. The northwest strong hold commander Ronald chose broken pieces of cinder block from a forgotten pile of a construction project years ago. These provided cliffs and the occasional jail enclosure. The final corner was tasked to Charlie, who was a little younger and didn’t quite get into strategy and cooperation rules as the others, so he was left to his own devices when unconvinced to participate in group movements. Finally, to represent the female contingent in the military, was Mary. She commanded the seas, for there were the hospital ships complete with staffed operation and recovery rooms for the wounded. She also provided a sand rinse for every GI before they got sand in the boats. Of her sixteen allotted contingent, six were dedicated to medical duty. The others were in various stages of recovery, and would be available to return to duty whenever one of the four squads suffered injury. For four young boys and a girl with dreams of wearing white one day, each commanding sixteen-soldier figures, green and plastic, with snacks and drinks at the ready, what more could they ask for?
Arny looked over to where the parents sat. It struck him as funny that none of them came over to participate. Was that part of being big? They made rules and were the ultimate authority when it came to when to eat and when to sleep. By their orders, he was sent off to pre-school, which is where all his playmates today had first met and befriended. Yet, they didn’t play.
Time passed. Arny was a senior at high school. The bonfire at the beach had been scaled back considerably in recent years due to a student who was accidentally burned to death three states away from there. A tradition that had grandeur and excitement therefore had to be downsized to something the adults could monitor and protect their precious charges better. It had been a great year for soccer, and the Fearsome-Four front line had seen their foes fall before them, goal after goal. It wasn’t a perfect season, but it was still one that got them to the semi-finals for the county. That last soccer field-battle was well fought and so close that it went into sudden-death overtime. No one faulted them for their loss, for all the athletes, cheer leaders, and even audience had given it their best. The other team had honest respect in their eyes during the traditional hand shake parade on the field.
Now, at the last celebratory bonfire, the varsity and junior varsity whooped it up with the cheerleading squads, still in their white and red school-colored cheering outfits. They stayed a little closer to the fire, for the skirts designed for high kicking didn’t do much to ward off the evening breeze from the pond at the City Park.
His Mary was there, joining in with her team mates, laughing loudly at the good times, and crying to think a bit part of their lives was coming to a close. Saying goodbye was part of the ritual. Soon, very soon, she would say goodbye to him (“But only for a while.”) as she had been accepted to the nursing program at State. One last memory to hold onto upon entering a different and frightening world. There was much happening out there and the world lived in fear. But here, at least, he and his own were watched over and protected.
Arny looked over at the adults. Once again, they removed themselves just far enough to be watchful but not to participate. The Coaches would come into their circles from time to time, but this was not for them. This was for the sports warriors. This was their beach and fire. It would be a perfect memory of comrades, flirtation, laughter and tears. What more could they ask for?
Arny was twenty years old. His Mary had moved on to someone older. All of his plans had changed. It was June 7th, 1944. Arny was a new casualty in the Normandy invasion on the beach code-named Utah. He had met the enemy, fought hard and bravely, and fell. He had lain in the sand, tagged by a sniper rifle’s German-engineered sights. Yet he was one of the more lucky souls that hit the beaches that day. Even now the stretcher was being unloaded from the small transport craft onto the British Hospital Ship to transport him and other wounded across the channel to England. The ship’s name was Lady Connaught. It was said that it had taken its name from Princess Patricia of Connaught, grand daughter of Queen Victoria. Patient capacity was 341, and she carried that and more during those early days of that pivotal event in the war.
The bullet did not need removal, as it was a ‘through and through’. The field medic managed to staunch the blood loss and prevent lung collapse. That and morphine to take the horrific pain down to a tolerable level was all he could do on site. The nightmare of pain and terror had eased into an uncomfortable dream, where sounds of voices near and distant, real and from the duffle bags of his past. His uniform and boots were efficiently cut and removed and a quick rinse washed away the foreign yett familiar sand. Arny drifted into a deeper dream while ‘meatball surgery’ sought to remove the blood in the chest cavity that still impaired half his right lung’s function. It had been a close one, for if the bullet had erred to the other side of the chest, a matter of perhaps two inches, then this young man would have had an entirely different military procedure, one that took its time.
Time passed unmeasured, offering dreams of sand and water, friends and laughter, and the happy yet sad cameos of a woman in white. There was also time to dream of horror, falling friends and strangers, small crack sounds and loud b
ooms of artillery both supportive and adversarial; the latter were the cheer leaders of war, urging from a distance, supporting their teams as best they could.
Arny woke up ever so gradually, with a slowly growing awareness of chest pain. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was undeniable proof that he still lived. Figures moved back and forth, fuzzy outlines at first. Yet they moved with purpose. With time came clarity, and the shapeless revealed their selves to passive sight. He tried to see more, following at first with just his eyes, then with head motion.
Arny’s signs of coming to must have attracted attention, for one of the moving figures veered off from the human parade. It was a she, and the haze residual from his opiates on board gave her a dream-like visage and voice.
“Welcome back, Private Woods. How do you feel?” It was a woman, and the voice sounded friendly. It reminded him of his dreams.
“Worse than when I stole one of Dad’s cigarettes for my first smoke.” He looked at her outfit. It was white. That meant something to that which he held dear down deep inside his injured spirit. Something precious. “Mary?”
The RN stopped her documentation. “Why, yes. How did you know? Do I know you?”
Arny smiled. It wasn’t her, now that he was seeing better. Yet…“Kind of. It’s hard to explain. Sand, conflict, bodies of water and ‘Mary in White’ are recurring themes for me.”
Mary smiled back. “Well, I’m glad to say you’ll have enough time to have a few more theme go rounds. It was close, but I think your folks are going to be very happy people when you get back.”
An older man appeared attracted to the conversation. He wore green, though. Green, like the hedge that once shielded him from the sun. “Ah, how’s our Private Woods doing? Good to see you awake, son. You had an infection from the wound, but antibiotics seems to have cleared things up. Nurse? You can remove the IV. His signs are stable. Transfer his status to light watch.”
“Yes, Doctor.” The elderly doctor, a volunteer from England who was forced out of retirement, marked something on a clip board and moved on. Arny watched him move from bunk to bunk. He was a grown up and, yet, he actually did play. He wasn’t in the sandbox, precisely, but now Arny was in the Doctor’s box.
Nurse Mary had finished removing the IV, leaving a bandaid over a wad of white cotton adorned with a red drop of blood on his arm.
“Rest, Private Woods. I’ll check in on you again later. I’d like to hear more about your déjà vu.”
The Private lay back after Mary fluffed his pillow. He was looking at the bunk above his own and had a passing wish for a pen to write an arrowed heart with ‘Mary and Arny’ inscribed within. Looking further up, he could see there was yet another row of bunks above that. Hospital ship, like his first Mary had commanded sixteen years ago.
The conflict of the sand box was fun. The soccer battles were much harder. Battle in real life wasn’t any fun at all.
Maybe it was time to be a grown up. He was tired of playing, and combat was for the young.