A Nick & Carter Holiday #7
Saturday, March 17, 1945
Nick Williams is in the U.S. Navy and working as a hospital corpsman. He was recently transferred to the Navy's Base Hospital 13 at Milne Bay, New Guinea, right on the edge of the jungle and pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
He's about to head over to Port Moresby for 24 hours of leave with his buddy, Hospital Apprentice First Class Reynolds, so they can fool around in private and in their own room at the Moresby Hotel. Nick is hoping they keep the place over there nice and clean and free of the snakes and bugs he runs into in his quarters at the base.
Friday, March 16, 1945
Carter Jones is working as a fireman at Station 3 on Polk Street in San Francisco. He's living on Turk Street in the apartment he and Henry shared before Henry, his first lover, joined the Army and shipped out to Europe.
He's having a hard time figuring out what to do with himself on a Friday before he begins his next shift. He starts the day by watching Meet Me In St. Louis for the third time at the Castro Theatre over in Eureka Valley. Then he runs into a new acquaintance he'd rather not see again. Can the day get any worse?
Once again I have read an entry in the Nick & Carter Holiday series before I have had a chance to read the "bulk" or "meat and potatoes" of their journey. Once again I loved it! I think I was less "on the fringe" in St. Patrick's Day, 1945 than the others. I use "on the fringe" because "lost" doesn't sound quite right as each one seems to have a beginning and end, there are characters that I'm sure are mentioned in more detail in their full journey but I don't feel I need to know that information to fully appreciate this short.
St. Patrick's Day, 1945 is what some might call "dual narration" as it is before the two men meet and we see where each man is that March. I don't know just when they actually met but I felt a better label would be "prequel to merging of fate's intention", yeah I know that's a bit over the top but hey, what can I say? I'm still new to this universe. However you choose to label it, this is a look at the two men before they their paths crossed and I have a feeling it explains a lot into their lonely hearts leading to that future meet.
I do want to take a minute to mention how I loved the scene where we see the internal heartache of Carter not having joined up. It's not an ache we see much in fiction because I'm afraid too many people today don't realize that not every able-bodied man was allowed to join. My grandfather and his youngest brother-in-law were told they were needed more on the homefront as they were farmers. As for my grandfather, he was also 4F due to a bout of rheumatic fever as a child but his BIL carried a fair amount guilt for not having served according to one of his daughters. I just wanted to applaud the author for accurately describing Carter's internal guilt, it was spot on.
Yet again, this snippet series has bumped the men's journey up another notch on my TBR list. I doubt I'll get to it before reading further holiday gems in Nick & Carter Holiday world but each one takes me closer and closer to jumping in. I also want to say another Thank You to Frank W Butterfield for spotlighting so many holidays that rarely get touched on in fiction, that aspect alone makes this series worth exploring so to have each one be so incredibly intriguing is just icing on the cake.
RATING:
U.S.N. Base Hospital 13
Hospital Corpsmen Quarters
Milne Bay, New Guinea
Sat 17 March 1945
0730 Kilo Time
. . .
Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street
San Francisco, Cal.
Friday, March 16, 1945
2:30 p.m. Pacific War Time
Nick Williams opened his eyes and turned over on his cot with a sigh. He reached over to the little bamboo table next to the cot and found his pack of Camels and his Zippo lighter. With just his one hand, he pulled out a cigarette, stuck it between his lips, and lit it.
Holding onto the lighter, he took a deep drag and could feel himself waking up to the hot and humid morning.
"You up, Frisco?" That was Reynolds, a fellow Navy corpsman. He was from Louisiana and, by all rights, should have had a nickname like "Cajun" or "Dixie Boy." But, for whatever reason, everyone called him by his last name. Nick had never heard the kid's first name that he could remember.
As he exhaled a small cloud of blue smoke, Nick said, "Yeah. I'm up."
"How'd you sleep through everyone else bangin' around and makin' such a god-awful noise?"
Nick laughed, took another drag, and, on the exhale, said, "I must've been sleepin' the sleep of the innocent."
From across the small Quonset hut that made up their quarters, he heard Reynolds snort. "Right."
After a long moment, Nick clamped his lips tightly around his Camel, and picked up his left boot with his right hand. He turned it upside-down and shook it. Sure enough, a big shiny beetle fell out and made its wobbly way across the black dirt that served as a floor. Nick repeated the same action with his right boot, and was slightly disappointed when nothing fell out.
. . .
Carter Jones walked out of the Castro Theatre and blinked in the bright Friday afternoon sunshine. Looking up at the Twin Peaks above the Eureka Valley neighborhood, he could see that the afternoon fog was already beginning to crawl around the hills. The fog didn't always make it to the Tenderloin, where he lived. He looked at his watch and, after realizing it was half past 2 in the afternoon, he thought it just might.
He pulled his coat tight as the wind suddenly gusted around the corner. When it hit him the second time, he managed to pull his hat down before it was blown down the street like had just happened to the bald man who was about to walk into the Twin Peaks Tavern at the corner.
He'd just seen Meet Me in St. Louis with Judy Garland for the third time. As he walked up Castro Street towards Market, trying to decide whether to walk home and have a sandwich there or to grab one on the way, he sidestepped a pair of twin blonde girls who came running towards him, both bundled up in rose-colored coats and both giggling.
Their mother, a blonde woman whose hair was bound tightly in a bun and who looked like she was on her way to work at the shipyard down at Hunter's Point for the second shift, smiled grimly at Carter and said, "Welcome back, soldier."
Carter nodded without replying and lengthened his gait as he walked as fast as he could to get away from the woman and her mistaken assumption.
. . .
The one shower that the eight corpsmen shared behind their quarters was in a shady spot protected by the wide leaves of some tree Nick had never seen until he'd arrived in New Guinea a couple of months earlier. Unlike the Quonset hut, the shower had a wood slat floor that sat a few inches above the ground and allowed the water to run off.
Like everywhere he went, the first thing he did when he pulled open the door to the three-by-three shower was to look for whatever might be taking a nap on the wood slats or hanging from the overhead plumbing. On that particular morning all he found was a bright green snake about four feet long who was hanging by its tail from the shower head. The snake turned its head and looked at him quizzically. Nick grabbed the creature just under its long chin and flicking red tongue, quickly yanked it from its perch, and casually threw it back into the jungle.
The trick to taking a shower at Milne Bay was not to get bitten or stung while doing so. Some of the guys, and it only made sense, would wear their boots. Nick liked to live on the wild side, so he only wore his boots as he walked from his cot, through the hut, and along the short dirt path to the shower but then kicked them off and left them just outside the swinging door before getting wet. The other guys, those who wore their boots, were always getting jungle rot on their feet since the boots never would dry out. That meant they had to deal with the wisecracking doctors every week or so but considered the infection and the pointed barbs better than a bite by something hiding under the slats. The doctors could afford to be assholes with the lowly corpsmen since their quarters had wood floors, wood walls, and glass windows while their shower rested on a small slab of poured concrete.
When taking a shower, Nick had a process he'd developed during his three years living and working on a big Navy hospital ship (which was where he'd been assigned before New Guinea). He pulled on the chain that released warm water from the overhead tank and got himself as wet as possible while counting to fifteen. He then let go of the chain and, using a handmade bar of saltwater soap, would lather himself up from head to toe. There was an old Australian lady who lived in a hut along the beach, just south of the hospital, who made the soap and sold it in small bars for an American nickel, four Australian pennies, or three British pennies. They had to use the special soap since Ivory didn't do much of anything in the water they used for showers because it was about half saltwater.
After lathering up, Nick pulled the chain again and counted to thirty while he rinsed off. He was fast at getting rid of the suds and usually had a whole ten seconds when he could just stand under the warm water and think about what it would be like to stand under a civilian shower for a good ten minutes or more.
. . .
By the time he made his way to Van Ness, Carter had finally relaxed. He hated it when someone assumed he'd been in the service. He'd wanted to go but, since he was a fireman in San Francisco, his captain had strongly suggested he not sign up back in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. The assumption at the time had been that the Japanese would strike California and all the policemen and firemen would be needed. Plenty had volunteered, and his station was definitely short-staffed, but Carter had done what his captain wanted and had regretted it ever since.
Just that morning, he'd read a story in the Examiner about how Churchill believed the war might be over by the end of the summer. Carter hoped so. He wanted it to be over and for life to get back to normal.
He didn't care about the rationing, which is what most people who complained about the war would talk about. He could happily eat beans and rice, with a fresh tomato thrown in every now and then, for most every meal. That way he saved up his red points for a good Porterhouse steak, well-done. He'd learned to tolerate fish, particularly if it was fried, but only when he was eating out. He didn't have a car, so he didn't have to worry about gas and tire coupons.
The truth was that Carter didn't like to complain about much anything, not even war-time conditions, so he didn't. There wasn't much use in doing so, anyway. The war was going to last as long as it was going to last, no matter what Carter thought about it. If he had been a complainer, he would have talked to those who were sympathetic regarding such things about finally getting to see his lover, Henry, who was a captain in the Army over in Europe.
Carter and Henry Winters had grown up together back in Albany, Georgia. In 1939, they'd driven cross-country to San Francisco and became lovers in the process. As soon as they arrived in the City, Carter had fulfilled his lifelong desire to become a fireman. Henry, for his part, had started school at Cal, going across the bay to Berkeley every day in pursuit of a degree in engineering. When the war started, Henry was told by the draft board to finish his degree. He graduated in 1943 and went to sign up. The Army took him on as a captain and, after boot camp and training school, sent him over to somewhere in Europe. In all the time he'd been gone, Henry had never been allowed to tell Carter where he was stationed or what he was doing. But the letters came and they were as regular as could be expected, so Carter was happy about that.
As he pushed through the door into Gene Compton's Cafeteria on Market, just past 11th Street, he sighed a little as he wondered about Henry and what he was doing and what life was like in the Army. Being the middle of the afternoon, the place was quiet. The only patrons were two sets of older ladies dressed for shopping and having coffee and a bite of something sweet. Being the middle of Lent, the smell of fried fish was in the air and Carter decided he'd get a plate of halibut smothered in tartar sauce, a bowl of tomato soup, and a wedge of raisin pie.
After he paid for his food and grabbed a cup of coffee, Carter found a table by the street-facing window and had a seat. He was halfway through wolfing down the halibut when he heard a sharp rap on the glass. Looking up, he saw Paul Downey smiling back at him through the window. In spite of himself, Carter smiled back and nodded. Paul then dashed towards the door while Carter sighed deeply, wishing he'd sat at a table that wasn't visible from the street.
. . .
Nick was sitting on his cot, reading Stars and Stripes for the third time that week, when Reynolds made his way back into the Quonset hut after taking his shower. Looking up, Nick noticed his friend was dressed only in his white BVDs and had wrapped his towel around his neck. Nick looked at his watch. It was a quarter past 8. He said, "You better get a move on. That Navy flyboy said we're taking off at 9 sharp and we still have to make our way through that bunch of overactive juveniles to get to the dock."
"I know, son, I know," drawled Reynolds as he threw his towel down on his cot and began to pull on his Navy blues. Nick watched the tall, muscular kid dress himself and could feel a familiar warmth move through his body.
He and Reynolds had twenty-four hours leave to head over to Port Moresby. They had to be back at Milne Bay by 0900 the next morning. The hospital commander was expecting the first wave of wounded from the remnants of the Iwo Jima battle to arrive by noon the next day and their unit had to be ready to handle them. Nick thought it was a hell of a long way for a bunch of injured sailors and marines to travel but, from what he'd heard, there were more wounded than had been expected. That was why the tiny hospital in the middle of nowhere New Guinea was expecting its largest contingent of patients since it had stood up back in '43.
About three hundred feet up the beach, there was a slightly larger U.S. Army hospital and, about half a mile further, an even larger facility run by the Australian Royal Air Force. The Army hospital wasn't much better than their digs, but the Navy doctors liked to fraternize with the Army nurses since, to a woman, the small group of Navy nurses were all known to be lesbians, although that wasn't the word the doctors used.
Nick had arrived at Milne Bay in January. It had taken about a week to figure out that he and Reynolds made a good pair. The kid was just Nick's type. He was blond, had bright blue eyes, and stood around 6'3". He'd worked in his daddy's factory back home, just outside of New Orleans, and was covered with muscles. Nick's only complaint was that Reynolds was hairless and smooth as a rock, except around his crotch. However, he knew how to use his equipment, which was always a good thing. They fooled around when they could get away with it and, as far as Nick knew, none of the other corpsmen were any the wiser.
Their leave in Port Moresby, a small town in the backwater of New Guinea, was their first chance to be truly alone and Nick was hoping Reynolds would finally go all the way to home base with him that night.
Welcome to a year of holidays with Nick Williams and Carter Jones!
This is a series of short stories with each centered around a specific holiday.
From New Year's Day to Boxing Day, each story stands on its own and might occur in any year from the early 1920s to the first decade of the 21st Century.
Saturday Series Spotlights
Author Bio:
Frank W. Butterfield is the Amazon best-selling author of 89 (and counting) self-published novels, novellas, and short stories. Born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, he has traveled all over the US and Canada and now makes his home in Daytona Beach, Florida. His first attempt at writing at the age of nine with a ball-point pen and a notepad was a failure. Forty years later, he tried again and hasn't stopped since.
St. Patrick's Day, 1945 #7
