I was naked. They must have cut my clothes off. I glanced across at the doctor in the chair. Had she seen me naked? I almost laughed out loud. The first time a woman had seen my dick in years, and I was unconscious and bleeding at the time. Very sexy. Go figure.
Pushing down the covers again, being careful not to move my hand from hers, I looked down at my legs. I half-expected to see two stumps, but there they were, although one of them looked like it was in a real mess, the whole thing encased in bandages. The shape was off, like someone had shaved off some ribbons of flesh. I still had two legs, that was a good start. My torso was bandaged too, with a tube coming out of one side. Probably a drain, I realised. I had seen enough injured buddies to realise that a bomb blast ripped through your body like a hurricane, tearing organs, snapping bones, taking the very soul from a man. I was still here, so I would take it from there.
‘Morning, Captain,’ a soft voice said, thick with sleep. I lowered the covers quickly, aware that I had probably just been flashing the crown jewels.
I looked across at her. She was stretching in the chair, hand still on mine, rubbing the sleep from her pretty almond eyes. ‘I didn’t see a thing, don’t worry. How are you feeling?’
I cut her off before she could go into full bedside manner mode. ‘My unit?’
Her face fell. ‘The man you were carrying, he didn’t make it. I’m s—’
I raised my drip hand at her. ‘I know, what about the others?’
She smiled a little then, relieved to have been asked another question. ‘They are all out, safe and sound.’
I nodded, a wave of relief coursing over me. Then I remembered something.
‘There was a boy, on the roof.’ My voice pushed out the words in a croak. She pressed her lips together, and I saw a flash of distress cross her features.
‘I’m sorry, they sent in a unit to check, but no one on the roof survived.’ I thought of Hightower, and what that must be doing to him. To kill a child in the line of duty could never and would never feel right. I hated that we were ever put in that position.
‘Hightower okay?’ Kate looked confused, and I shook my head in frustration. ‘Never mind, forget it. When can I get back to duty?’
Her face fell, and she looked down at our hands. I pulled mine away then, and she let it go without a fight.
‘Dr Trevor Tanner is going to come and talk to you soon, on his rounds.’
I grunted in annoyance. ‘I’m not some idiot, missy. I just want to know when.’
She raised her chin at me then, her face hardening a little. ‘First of all, I’m not “missy”, I’m Dr Kate Harper. I am an orthopaedic surgeon attached to your unit and several others, and as I said Dr Tanner, my superior, is going to come and speak to you on rounds …’ She checked her watch. ‘… Which started half an hour ago. I need to go, I’ll come and check on you soon.’
She stood up and strode off haughtily. I laughed at her swagger. This one was a real ball buster, I could tell.
‘Okay, Missy,’ I shouted after her, chuckling. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’
I sniggered again as she made a ‘humpf’ sound, her nose pointing at the air furiously as she sped up her stomp. My whole body screamed at me for laughing, but it was so worth it.
That was the day we came into each other’s lives.
***
Kate was in a real mood; Trevor could tell from the way she pounded across the tent to him. He was doing his rounds, and they had had a good night. A good night here was when they still had the same number alive as the day before. A great day was when there were no casualties at all, but Trevor was hard pushed to remember many days like that.
‘Who’s upset you? Neil whingeing about doing the dishwasher again, is he?’ Trevor asked, and immediately regretted cracking the joke when the icicles from Kate’s frosty glare jabbed him in the chest.
‘Captain Cooper thinks he is hilarious. I’m just waiting for him to call me ‘toots’ and slap me on the behind,’ Kate said, seething. Trevor checked the vitals on his sleeping patient, and satisfied, made notes on his chart.
‘So he’s awake? That’s amazing! How is he doing?’
‘Oh he’s doing just fine, for a male chauvinist pig.’
Kate,’ Trevor admonished, trying not to laugh at her furious expression. ‘How are his vitals?’
Kate pursed her lips, taking a breath to focus on the job. ‘He’s stable, the chest drain is working well. I’m still concerned about his leg though. He has limited blood flow to the area, and I’ m worried about sepsis.’
Trevor nodded sadly. ‘So he will probably lose the leg, if we try to keep him alive.’ He rubbed at his temples. ‘Not told him any of this, have you?’
Kate shook her head. ‘I told him you would explain on this morning’s ward round. I wanted to go through everything again, monitor him closely for as long as we safely can before we make a decision.’
Trevor looked at her, his face unreadable. ‘It may not be our decision, it’s up to him.’
Kate looked nonplussed. ‘The evac chopper is coming in two days. At present, he’s too unstable to move. We need to get him home then, leg or no leg. A decision between losing a limb and dying is not a great thing to have thrust at you, granted - but he wants to live, surely?’
Trevor placed the chart at the foot of the bed and started to walk towards the next patient, issuing medication instructions to the nurse as he walked.
‘Kate,’ he began in a tone he might have used to tell his child that Father Christmas wasn’t real. ‘I have worked on men like Captain Cooper since this whole nightmare started. These are army men to the core. Sometimes going home means no family, no buddies, no job, and a lifetime of relying on other people. They are proud, and sometimes, to them, the reality is worse than death. Don’t take anything for granted when it comes to patient wishes.’
‘A boy died yesterday, to save these men. Surely that’s reason enough to want to live?’
Kate ran her fingers through her hair, suddenly feeling tired all over again.
‘Cooper knows that. Better than most, probably. It’s still his decision, he has to live with it. Understood?’ Trevor spoke firmly now.
Kate opened her mouth to argue, but she thought better of it. She respected her mentor, always had, and she didn’t want to argue. Not when the fact that life was so short and precious was evident in every face, every feature she saw over here. ‘Understood.’
‘So what you’re saying doc, is that I’m screwed.’ Captain Cooper was sat up in bed now, the drain poking out from his side. The internal bleeding had been dealt with, his chest now free from shrapnel. All his organs were intact, and the tears in his body had been sewn up, the bleeding stopped.
Trevor pulled a chair across to sit near his bedside. ‘Your left leg is bad, Captain. You’re starting to show signs of infection, and we feel that a below
