Go Long

by Jeff Baker

“I got it I got it!”

The burly young man in army fatigues yelled running under the soaring football as it zipped passed his outstretched arms and bounced on the ground.

“He had it,” one of the other men said. “Okay, batter up!”

“This is football!” someone else shouted.

“Glad it’s not war!” someone else yelled, to a few laughs from his teammates and people on the sidelines.

The sky was blue, the temperature was pleasant and there was a light breeze stirring the tent flaps. If it wasn’t for the big red crosses on the tents the setting might have looked like a camp out instead of an Army field hospital in a war zone.

To one side of the in-progress football game stood a tall man and a shorter, younger man wearing rank insignia on his hat.

“We need this after some of the days we’ve had,” said the tall man.

“You’re telling me.” said the man in the hat.

“But this morning…” the tall man said. “Someone rebuilding a jeep in the mess tent. The nurses staging a conga line protest. Men from the village down the road pulling one of their shrines here…”

“On runners like a sleigh,” the man in the hat chuckled. “And whoever put a microphone in the showers to broadcast everything over the loudspeakers!”

They watched the game, listened to the calls, felt the breeze.

“You know,” the tall man said. “Someday I’m going to have grandkids and someday one of them is going to ask what it was like in the war. And so I’ll tell them about the people I knew. I’ll tell them about the young men we were able to save at this hospital and I’ll tell them about the ones we tried to save.” He broke out into a broad grin. “And then I’ll tell them about this one crazy day…”

“Go long!” somebody yelled.

Another big man in fatigues raced towards the tall man and the man in the hat as the football soared towards him.”

“I gooooot iiiiit!!” the man yelled as the two of them jumped out of the way.

Running backwards the man caught the football but was unable to stop his momentum and ran into the tent with CHAPEL written on a sign with a small cross beside it, hanging over the entrance. There was a crash and a clatter.

“I got it! I’m okay!” came the voice from inside the chapel.

“He’s out-of-bounds,” the tall man said.

“Glad that was the Reverend,” the man in the hat said, as the Reverend staggered out of the tent grinning and clutching the football. He was six-foot-four, two-hundred-fifty pounds.

“Who’s gonna tell him that doesn’t count?” the tall man said.

There was a roar of an engine as an Army ambulance rushed into the compound. The first of several.

“This crazy day isn’t over yet,” the man in the hat said as they all rushed to surgery.

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the May Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a War Story, involving a Football, set in a Chapel. My story is a nod to a certain TV series. And to all the folks who did it for real.

—jeff