My Home From Home (ManxMan)

Chapter 22

Two Years Ago...

Amiens, France 1918

    Canon fire... Guns ablaze... agonised screaming... explosion... dispair..

    It all sounded as though it was in the distance, though the reality was that it was dangerously close. Thomas' eyes darted beneath the gentle sheath of his lightly shut eyelids; his body laying prone as he gradually felt consciousness descend onto his pained body whilst the sounds of battle in the distance and screams and moans of despair close by  brought him out of his haze slumber.

    Thomas groaned as he tried to blink his eyelids open, though there was a feeling of heaviness that seemed to fight his might. He felt like he'd be sick at the pungent smell of sulphur and gunpowder laced with he putrid odour of blood and death; fluttering his dark blond lashes open to reveal a dazed, hazy mess about him.

"Captain! This patient is waking up!" He heard a feminine voice sounding like a young Welsh woman, though in his muddled mind, he hardly realised that it was he whom the voice was referring to waking up."

"Thank you, Nurse Davies. I'll have a look. Do me a favour if you've got time, there are more casualties being brought in from the field, we need all hands on deck we can for triage." Thomas heard a second voice, a glorious angelic voice with the most beautiful gently tone and a calm, refined cadence, and a glass clear upper-class English accent. It was slightly muffled, as though coming through a mask, though Thomas couldn't help but find the voice hypnotising nonetheless.

    And that was when Thomas saw him; his mystery guardian angel as he'd come to refer to him. He was slender, wearing his perfectly pressed and form fitted khaki British Army uniform with the insignia that gave him away as a Captain. He had a white arm band with the Red Cross symbol on it that allowed Thomas to infer he was an army medic.

    Thomas felt as though his body were floating on air; as though he wasn't sure if this was reality or a figment of his wild imagination. He watched in awe, staring blankly with wide eyes as the young Captain approached him; he had a white cloth face mask on which wasn't uncommon given that the Spanish Influenza pandemic was in it's early days. Thomas wished he could see the boy's face, but all he could see was his beautiful strikingly sapphire blue eyes and the slightest bit of dark raven black hair peaking out from under the crown of his army cap.

"Hello..." Nodded the angelic young medic as Thomas felt his mind freeze up entirely; he tried and failed to prop himself up, only to feel a sharp stinging pain in his shoulder. "No no! Relax! You're only just recovering, you mustn't exert yourself." The blue eye'd angel stopped him with a gentle hand on his unaffected shoulder; there was a genuineness in his eyes that perplexed Thomas. These medics saw men in the thousands coming mangled and maimed from the trenches and the battlefields, but this medic looked like he actually cared. "How are you feeling...erm..." The man's voice trailed off as he glanced towards the insignia Thomas' now blood stained and scoffed up uniform. "Lieutenant...? And what division are you?"

"Lieutenant Wilson, Captain. F-first Canadian D-division." Thomas stammered, his deep brown eyes still staring blankly at the beautiful young boy; and though he could merely see his beautiful eyes and a lustrous peek of his raven brown fringe, the beauty he saw wasn't the beauty he saw. For through those deep blue eyes, dark like the English Channel, he saw a beauty that transcended physical beauty; he saw a beauty in his soul, in his ability to care, in his genuine concern. A beauty that captivated Thomas instantly

"Very well, I'll insure word is sent to your regiment of your whereabouts." Nodded the dark haired Captain, his eyes squinting ever so slightly clearly indicative of him smiling under his face mask. He leant over to pick up the chart from the foot of Thomas' cot. "You've suffered a bit of shrapnel injury; it appears as though you'd lost consciousness after an explosion. You're on morphine which should help ease the pain. We shall continue monitoring you for any internal damage though you've got yourself a rather nasty broken arm there. I should think the Army will send you home." Thomas cocked a brow at him, blinking in utter shock that all that had transpired and he barely remembered a thing; perhaps for the sake of his own psychological wellbeing it, not remembering his trauma was for the best. "I'm the head Medic in charge of this tent ward, so should you need anything, simply ask any of the nurses or privates and they can find me for you. Other than that, just rest up and we'll continue monitor your progress. They'll likely send you to London for the Royal Medical Army Corp to conduct a thorough physical and God willing you'll be back home in Canada and back to your old self before you know it. Now, have you any questions for me that you'd like answered?"