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A rebel encampment was quite a generous name for the place at hand. A handful of tents, a barbed wire fence and some trenches where a few soldiers lay either clutching guns or open wounds were all that made up the field they settled in.
General Caterpillar, much like the General Caterpillar before, was not very present. They said things like “eat” or “drink” or “inhale for a second, hold your nose” with reckless abandon and not much consideration for anyone trying to sleep in one of the few beds by the corner of the fence.
Dormouse had given up trying to sleep quite a while ago. It was busying itself with reading, as it often did. It had many books about body parts and bandages and cures for trench foot but as far as it could remember, it hadn’t seen any other nurses (or medical supplies for that matter) since long before the new General Caterpillar had gotten their fancy badge.
It still had its uniform, it rather liked its uniform. Even though it wasn’t technically a nurse it still wore its little hat with pride and kept its apron as tidy as it could manage. Even if the job was menial, the skirt was quite nice.
It dug around in one of the pockets of its apron, the one not filled to the brim with trinkets and dog tags and the like. It found its pen and got to work scribbling down some notes and fixing one or two missed commas. Sixty years made medical textbooks quite outdated, indeed.
"Dolores," Caterpillar asked, even though they knew people only ever used last names around here, "How's the medicine supply?"
It shrugged and turned the page, looking instead at a rather fascinating diagram of someone's insides. Grasping for conversation around here wasn't the most pleasing task in the world and the General didn't quite know what they were saying. It wasn't much of a Dolores, nor much of a nurse, really. It didn't try to make sense of Caterpillar, not that they ever made sense anyway. In its opinion, the war was all far too frivolous and not much fun at all.
It didn’t like being a field mouse and rather thought it would suit just being Dormouse. They hadn’t much need for nurses around here anyway and so, with a wave and a couple of books tucked under one arm, it was on its way.
It walked for quite a while, passing empty fields and patches of odd coloured fungus. Trees that went all knobbly at odd ends, people with the same idea as it trying to find somewhere where there was no fighting left to do.
It read as it walked, making its way through the brunt of a textbook before tripping over a body not quite dead yet and deciding that keeping one eye on the road seemed appropriate.
There was not much to do to keep itself entertained but it tried in vain with reading paragraphs of story books aloud and the promise of somewhere quiet to sleep.
On the evening of the second day walking, when it had reached its wit's end with the pain in its feet and the hem of its skirt had gotten absolutely covered in mud, it found a nice shady spot to sit. Underneath another dead tree sat a table. It was a rickety old thing with the sorry attempts at a tablecloth strewn over the top of it.
Dormouse settled itself underneath it, getting comfortable on a tuft of grass. It got lost for quite a while, halfway through a book and a dream about tea parties. At some point, someone began mumbling above it about ceasefires and handshakes and cucumber sandwiches. It was a quite pleasant dream, all things considered, and it decided that their current whereabouts were a lot nicer than the constant ring of agony and gunfire.
That was, at least, until they got a jab in the side from a grubby boot and jam in the face from a stray slice of bread. It sat up quickly, head hitting the bottom of the table and causing a ruckus. Someone yelped and someone else screamed something about ghosts. It picked up its book and sat up, maneuvering around the scraggly end of the tablecloth.
"Oh!" said one of the two people sitting at opposite ends of the table. He was a young man, quite a deal smaller than Dormouse, propped up on his knees in his chair. He had the beginnings of a moustache and wore an ill-fitting uniform (somehow for opposing sides of the war, it noted) and he had quite a number of playing cards stuffed into the brim of his peaked cap.
"Oh?" replied Dormouse, fixing its apron and putting its book back under its arm.
"Major Haigha!" the other person grinned, sticking one arm out violently for a handshake. He was taller than the other one, with a wiry beard and a bandanna tied around his neck. With his beady eyes and bandaged up helmet he looked rather lagomorphy, indeed.
"Major Hatta!" the shorter one called back, grabbing ahold of Dormouse's other hand and shaking gleefully. Its book dropped from the crook of its elbow and hit the table with another crash, sending a teacup cascading towards its makeshift bed.
None of them looked anything like majors. Why, Major Haigha was wearing half a drum major’s uniform.
"Dormouse," Dormouse said, kicking dirt over the puddle of tea in a feeble attempt to get it dry, "You interrupted my nap."
"Let me get that for you." Major Hatta reached over the table and pawed at the jam still on its nose with an only slightly bloody handkerchief.
It pulled a face but didn't do much to stop him. He was nice about covering it in food, at least. Once he was done Dormouse sat back down on the ground, both for a lack of another chair and because it found it a lot less claustrophobic than the little table and its teacups and sandwiches and cakes.
It chose not to focus too much on the fact that these two maybe-majors-maybe-colonels couldn’t find a proper uniform but had the time to make all this food. Focusing on anything for too long made its head spin so it instead reached for a cucumber sandwich (crusts cut off, as is polite) and ate as it read.
“What’s the time, Hatta?” asked Haigha through a sip of tea, slapping at Hatta’s hand as he grabbed another teacup.
He fumbled for a watch buried in one of the pockets of his coat, shaking the biscuit crumbs off as it clicked open. “Six o’clock!”
“Are you sure? It’s been six o’clock for a while,” said Haigha with the handle of his cup between his teeth. He’d been finding things to chew on.
“I’m sure! You just always ask at six o’clock!” he pointed his pocket watch at Haigha and shook it a little bit to prove… Something.
“It could be broken.” Haigha shrugged.
“You could have broken it when you attacked it with a butter knife, you brute!” Hatta shook the watch again for good measure.
“The butter was to get it open when you stuck it closed with strawberry jam and to fix the gears as you asked.” Haigha shrugged.
“Yes but now the hands never move and I can hardly tell the day anymore!” after one more accusatory shake the watch was placed on the table in between the sandwiches and teapot. Haigha dragged it towards himself with a teaspoon for inspection.
“One could say,” Dormouse said, growing tired of their bickering, “That if you can’t tell the time, it could really just be six o’clock whenever you like.”
Hatta frowned, puzzled. “That would be like saying if you’ve never been to the ocean then fish mustn’t be real.”
“Or if you live in a house without mirrors or windows then glass is a construct,” Haigha muttered, chewing now on the end of his spoon.
“The moon couldn’t exist for all I care,” Dormouse rolled its eyes “I’ve never seen it.”
“Neither have I.” Haigha shrugged, though he was still very focused on the pocket watch in front of him.
“I don’t think we have a moon,” mumbled Hatta.
“Then that settles it! I’m right.” Dormouse nodded and laid down, using its book as a pillow. It wasn’t as comfortable as under the table, but it would manage. It wasn’t the worst place it had slept.
While it drifted off Hatta and Haigha continued to squabble over time and if the Queen really did exist as it was only Hatta who’d met her. Dormouse didn’t care enough to listen.
It was woken up a while later, rather rudely, by another voice. A different voice to the singing and talking and yelling of the could-be-majors.
Dormouse cracked an eye open to find a woman sitting on a makeshift stool at the table. She was fat with strong arms, hair tied back and practical and she had a scratchy, heavy-looking jumper tucked into the pilot's jumpsuit tied around her waist. She seemed busy, looking between the majors as they yelled cheerfully about their ceasefire.
The teacup was still sitting under the table. The woman kicked it in either confusion or frustration, Dormouse wasn’t exactly sure.
“So which of you is fighting for King Cole?” she raised an eyebrow, at a loss to the scene she’d found herself in.
“Oh, it's certainly not me.” Hatta pushed a plate of bread and butter towards the stranger. She did not want the bread and butter.
“It's not me. Man's a monster!” Haigha grimaced, chewing on a button by his collar that had a suspiciously crown shaped crest stamped into it.
“I thought you were his colonel.” Hatta jabbed a spoon in his direction.
“pretty sure I'm a major.” Haigha pointed his fork back.
Hatta shrugged and mumbled something along the lines of: “Oh, well, I’m sure there's documentation somewhere…”
The stranger just blinked, looking defeatedly down at her plate now piled with a few cakes and a teabag or two. She looked over at the tin of tea leaves in some attempt to find something that made the littlest bit of sense. She spooned a little into her thermos in despair.
Hatta and Haigha continued rambling, speaking over each other despite their attempts to be polite. At some point Haigha bit right through the thread keeping his button in place and he picked it out of his mouth sheepishly, placing it on the table by Hatta’s watch.
The ceasefire was meant to be done by eight o’clock but it had been six for such a long while. Hatta’s watched ticked once or twice, gears grinding together unpleasantly. Hatta paid it no mind as he tipped a few more tea leaves into the stranger’s cup.
“Forget the tea! You're fighting tomorrow?” she asked, gesturing wildly at the battlefield behind her.
Dormouse blinked owlishly and sat up, rubbing its eyes and setting its book in its lap. “Well actually, I think you'll find that if today's tomorrow is tomorrow then surely tomorrow's tomorrow is today.” It paused for a moment, “No, no, wait a minute-”
It was soon drowned out by Hatta and Haigha again, linking arms and throwing themselves over each other's shoulders. It was very dramatic for people who called themselves enemies.
Hatta’s watch did not tick again for a long time. Not even after the rather odd woman gave up and left, kicking the teacup (and table leg accidentally) again for good measure.
“Oh she's leaving. Funny one, isn’t she?” Hatta looked disappointedly down at the cup, now rolling down towards the still barren battlefield.
“Probably an enemy spy.” Haigha shrugged.
“Almost definitely.”
Dormouse took the opportunity to crawl back under the table with its book. It did not care much for the conversation and instead curled up to sleep, narrowly avoiding another glob of jam as Hatta missed his scone.