OURS NOT TO QUESTION WHY
Sentient has lost patience with smug generals, certain of their safety no matter how badly their D-Day plans go.
Never anger an ancient entity from another plane of existence.
OURS NOT TO QUESTION WHY
“Two kinds of people are stayingon this beach—the dead and those who are going to die.”
— Colonel George A. Taylor,
commanding the Sixteenth InfantryRegiment, First Infantry Division, on Omaha Beach.
Everyone deep down thought thatthere was no Sentient. She was just some bizarre aspect of my insane, psychicmind.
If only.
I at least had some semblance ofmercy. Sentient mocked mercy as a form of self-destructive timidity.
‘How gallant of you to think so.Again, you reveal how much you do not know.’
All in the chamber cried out asthe world blossomed around us like some flower from Hell.
No, I take that back.
We were inHell. First class ticket, courtesy of Sentient.
‘You are welcome.’
‘I didn’t thank you.’
‘How characteristic of you.’
I was in someone else’s body. Howdid I know? My wrists and hands no longer hurt. It was a burden lifted thatnear brought me to tears.
And I could feel the cold, wetdeck of the Higgins boat beneath my fingers as I kneeled on it.
I could feel with my fingers!
The salty spray from the channelstung my lips, my eyes as it splashed over my face. The stench of vomit wasthick. I tightened my face. I would be damned if I died on my knees.
I instinctively hunched over asthe last of the naval shells soared so low overhead that they sucked the airfrom my lungs and lifted the Higgins boat inches from the water.
Soldiers all around me wereretching, sobbing, and fingering their rosary beads.
One wiry soldier staggered overto me, grabbing me by the right arm. I stiffened as a woman’s voice whisperedin my ear.
Lucile Churchill’s.
“Oh, Richard! Are we to die?”
“Ah, that’s Major Blaine, ma’am.”
“Shush! It’s Lucy now. We are inHell, sir, so I believe first names are allowed.”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no. We willjust make the most of where Sentient sends us.”
We suddenly hit a sandbar with alurch. The coxswain who hit the sandbar shouted, “I’m unloading and getting thehell out of here!”
Lucy, in the soldier’s body,instinctively started towards the dropping ramp. I quickly pulled her back andheaded her to the rear of the Higgins boat.
A group of soldiers rushed pastus and started jumping out into water up to their necks. I saw their leader, a Lieutenant,get killed by an exploding shell.
Blood and bits of the braveofficer splattered all over Lucy and me. The sound of it deafened me, but notso much that I did not hear Lucy scream.
Then, the flamethrower got blownup. Lucy and I staggered back from the force of the blow-back. I gently liftedthe soldier who housed her spirit and jumped out.
The water went up to our chins.Lucy swore some very unladylike words when some of the dirty channel watersplashed into her open mouth.
The radioman ahead of us had hishead blown off three yards from us. Lucy started shivering violently. The waterwas covered with floating bodies, men with no legs, no arms.
“Oh, my dear Lord,” sobbed the soldierin Lucy’s voice. “This is horrendous. Horrendous!”
I raised my head to the darkskies and cried, “Sentient, she had nothing to do with this fiasco. Take herback!”
‘No.’
But I guess in her way, Sentienthad her kind of mercy on her … and me.
I saw the zippering of the waterahead of us just before the hail of machine gun bullets ripped into our bodies.
They say you never feel thebullets that kill you.
They lied.
I jerked awake as if from anightmare. For a heartbeat, I was back in St. Paul’s auditorium, observing allthe dignitaries twitching in their seats as if being riddled with a hundredbullets.
Then, I was back in anotherHiggins boat being tossed about by the water and the shells exploding aroundthe craft, my head ringing from all the blasts.
“Ow!” I cried as a bit ofshrapnel bounced off my helmet.
“Thank the dear Lord!” cameLucy’s voice from a lanky soldier who stumbled to my side.
“I thought I had lost you.”
I smiled drily. “Me. too.”
A heavy-set Lieutenant stumbledup to the two of us. “Would you bloody well explain this madness to me? I waslistening to your drivel at St. Paul’s, and now I am here!”
“Lucy” turned to him and roaredover the explosions. “Col. Dawson, follow Major Blaine’s lead and you justmight make it off this boat.”
“This boat? I want to go back toSt. Paul’s not onto that bloody beach!”
Boats on either side were gettinghit by artillery. Some were burning, others sinking. Dying men were screaming. Some for lovers, others for their mothers.
They were all so damn young.
We hit the beach with a dozenother Higgins boats. “Col. Dawson” raced down the ramp as soon as it went down.Then, he went down, his head seeming to explode from some massive shell.
“Are you cowards?” snapped acaptain as he rushed past us down the ramp.
“Southeast Champion,” I whisperedas I jumped, sweeping “Lucy” behind me as we hit the shallow water.
As the captain jumped from theramp into the water, he took a bullet through his throat.
He staggered to thesand, flopped down near me and “Lucy”, and raised himself up to gasp, “Advancewith the wire cutters!”
At that instant, machine-gunbullets ripped the brave captain from crown to pelvis, drenching the two of uswith his blood and brains.
“NO!” screamed Lucy. “Nomore!”
“I am coming, my Lucy,”cried the voice of Winston Churchill.
We both turned to see thestocky soldier who housed the spirit of the Prime Minister wading his way asfast as he could through the thigh deep water.
He should have kept thatbig mouth of his shut. He drew the fire of a dozen Nazi machine guns. He reeledover into the water, cut nearly in two.
“Winnie!”
“Lucy” kept on screaming, and Ishook her to keep her from drawing an equally lethal rain of machine gun fire.“Your Winston is still alive.”
“Can you promise me that in thisHell?”
“Yes. Sentient is not mercifulenough to end his life and the nightmares that will follow him enduring this.”
A grizzled coxswain jumped at me,grabbing me by my blouse front with both gnarled hands and growled in GeneralPatton’s gruff voice.
“Damn you to Hell, Blaine! ThatSentient must have known I was burned on my face in WWI. I’ve been blown apartby not one, but two exploding flame ….
“Lucy” slapped the man hard. Veryhard. His head rocked back.
“You are not a child. Stop actinglike one!”
He looked like he wanted to slapback, but instead yelled to no one in particular, ‘”Where is the damned Air Corps?’ ”
“Come on, boys and girl. We’ll bekilled if we keep standing still. Let’s head to the shingles.”
“The what?” frowned Lucy.
“Those small round stones upyonder that make lousy cover, but they are better than nothing at all.”
I floundered in the water with myhand up in the air, trying to get my balance, when I was first shot through thepalm of my hand. Then, I got one through the knuckle.
The hand that had blissfully notbeen hurting started to hurt like hell.
“This is so not fair!” I grumbled.“I can’t keep an unhurt hand for the life of me.”
A private waded to me, his paleface frantic. “Sergeant, they’re leaving us here to die like rats. Just to dielike rats.”
And then, we were back at St.Paul’s auditorium.
Winston Churchill raced to Lucyat my side. “My love! You are all right.”
She patted his cheek withtrembling fingers. “It may take me a sherry or two to be all right, Winnie. ButI am safe.”
His face was once again aninflamed catcher’s mitt. “I hate you, sir!”
"It's a big club, Prime Minister. Take a number."
“Winnie! He took two bullets forme.”
I flexed my artificial hand whichstill seemed to feel the bullets going through it.
General Patton gingerly touchedhis face as if feeling a bit of ghost pain the same as I was.
I looked round about me. Most ofthe dignitaries were twitching unconscious on the floor. I looked to theunconscious Eisenhower.
He looked like he was having agrand mal seizure. I felt nothing.
Sentient mocked, ‘At least youare not feeling satisfaction.’
‘No, that would be you.’
‘But of course.’
A laggard thought hit me, and Irushed to the King. “Your Majesty, are you alright?”
He smiled wanly. “Like LadyChurchill, it may take me a whisky sour or two before I can truthfully answer 'Yes' to that.”
His haunted eyes met mine. “MajorBlaine, I have often wondered what Hell would be like. I no longer have towonder.”
