A Christmas Short Story featuring "Bandaid"

I wrote this this past Christmas season for a creative writing FB group. I thought I would add it to the blog as it features Bandaid, a character from The End oF Shift Report.

Bandaid's Christmas Gift

   It was Christmas day, and Bandaid was sitting in the hootch he shared with Wyatt. The hootch wasn’t much, just a hole in the ground about ten feet by ten feet, with walls of sandbags. Wooden cargo pallets made a floor. Canvas stretched over all, and some mosquito netting covered the space between the sandbags and the canvas roof.

   Bandaid was the medic on a search and rescue chopper, Wyatt was a chopper crew chief, he was on R and R to Australia, so Bandaid had the hootch to himself. He was picking at a Christmas dinner in his mess kit from the mess hall. On holidays, especially Christmas, they really tried hard with the food, but sweltering in 100 degree heat and nearly that in humidity just kind of put you off turkey and all the heavy trimmings. Frozen turkey, freeze dried reconstituted potato flakes, canned cranberry sauce and canned gravy. The stuffing was fresh, that is, made from leftover stale bread, but with fresh carrots, celery, onions etc. It was definitely the high point of the meal.

   On his hammock which was strung across one of the corners of the hootch was an opened cardboard box containing a cookie tin full of homemade chocolate chip cookies, which were more like chocolate chip crumbs after the rigors of being mailed over 9,000 miles. The box was addressed to “US Soldier” and was from a 4th grade class in Lexington Kentucky. Every hootch on this corner of the base got one of these packages, and they were accepted with a range of reactions that seemed to track the recipients time “in country”. That is to say, with humble gratitude by the green troops and a certain fatalistic crustiness by the “Short timers”, who were counting down the days until they got their ticket on the “freedom bird”.

   Bandaid felt restless. He got up from the hootch and walked on down to the flight line, Christmas music playing from the PA system.  The sentries at the gate to the flight line passed him through with a desultory wave which disturbed the curl of smoke from their cigarettes. Bandaid passed down the line of hueys, each in a revetment of sandbags until he came to his. “Nurse Betty” was painted on the nose in white against  the ubiquitous “olive drab” green of the army. The outlines of a pin up girl in abbreviated nurses uniform was there too, but had never been painted in.

   Bandaid opened the sliding side door to the cabin, which was padded with quilted canvas cloth on the walls and ceiling. Three stretchers were in their brackets on the rear bulkhead of the cabin. Bandaid noticed a package elegantly wrapped in tinfoil on the middle stretcher. It had a bow made from the black and gold ribbon from a bottle of Crown Royal. He looked closer at the package. He could see that the foil wrapping was from cigarette packs. There was a tag on the package that said simply “Bandaid”, no indication of who had placed it there.

   Bandaid took the package to the door of the chopper, and sat down on the floor with his feet resting on the skid below. He turned the package over in his hand and was struck by the care and workmanship that had been visited on the humble materials used in its construction. Who did he know that was capable of such handiwork?

   He carefully began unwrapping the small gift, careful not to tear the foil or mess up the carefully crafted bow. Logically there would be no reason to be so careful of materials that were in truth recycled trash, but he was loath to damage such meticulously crafted wrappings. There was a cardboard box inside, one that also looked to be repurposed. Inside was a wrist watch. Shiny and very new looking, it was a Benrus with a steel mesh wristband. It had a large dial and a sweep second hand that would be so good for taking pulses, timing breathing. There was a note too. “Bandaid - The nurses told me that was your name, I just wanted to thank you for getting me out. By the time you open this, I will be on my way back to the States. Hang in there, your time will come.” No signature.

   Bandaid sat in the doorway of the chopper until darkness began to fall.