Part 13 (1/2)

The kid from the State Department disappeared. Jake stared after him. Either they really were making them younger than they had once upon a time or he himself was starting to get some serious mileage on him. He suspected the problem did not lie with the State Department.

Whether he was getting old or not, he still had a war to run. He could do that better than anybody else in the CSA. Better than anybody else in the USA, too, by G.o.d, Better than anybody else in the USA, too, by G.o.d, he thought. And those three Mexican divisions would help, especially since, now that Maximilian had agreed once, he'd have a harder time saying no if Jake asked again. And Jake intended to do just that. he thought. And those three Mexican divisions would help, especially since, now that Maximilian had agreed once, he'd have a harder time saying no if Jake asked again. And Jake intended to do just that.

Dr. Leonard O'Doull wondered what was going on when he and his aid station got pulled out of their position across the Rapidan from the Wilderness and s.h.i.+fted east. Now he knew: they'd left the frying pan and gone straight into the fire.

Most of the frying was getting done on the other side of the Rappahannock, in and just beyond Fredericksburg. The U.S. Army had battered out a foothold there, as it had in the Wilderness. It was trying to feed in enough men and machines to make the foothold mean something. Whether it could was very much up in the air.

Whether the kid on the table in front of O'Doull would make it was also up in the air. A piece of shrapnel had torn the h.e.l.l out of his chest. He was bleeding faster than O'Doull could patch him. ”Keep pouring in the plasma!” O'Doull barked to Granville McDougald. ”Gotta keep his blood pressure up.”

”Pretty soon there won't be any blood in the pressure,” McDougald said. That exaggerated, but not by much. An awful lot of blood had come out, and an awful lot of plasma had gone in. ”s.h.i.+t!” McDougald exclaimed. ”We haven't got any pressure now!”

”Yeah.” O'Doull had no trouble figuring out why, either-the kid's heart had stopped. He grabbed it and started cardiac ma.s.sage. Once in a blue moon, that worked. Most of the time, a heart that stopped would never start again. This was one of those times. After a few minutes, he let it go and shook his head. ”We've lost him.”

McDougald nodded. ”Afraid you're right. That was a nasty wound. We did everything we could.” He beckoned to a corpsman. ”Get him off the table, Eddie. He's Graves Registrations' business now.”

”Right, Granny,” Eddie said. ”One more Deeply Regrets telegram. One more time when everybody hopes the Western Union delivery boy stops next door.”

The corpse was hardly out of the tent before a groaning sergeant with a shattered knee came in on a stretcher. ”Granny, you do this one and I'll pa.s.s gas,” O'Doull said. ”You're neater at orthopedic stuff than I am.”

”I've had more practice, Doc, that's all.” But McDougald sounded pleased. He wasn't an M.D. despite his vast experience; to have a real doctor defer to him had to make him feel good.

”Gas!” the sergeant said when O'Doull pressed the ether cone down over his nose and mouth. O'Doull had seen that before. He and Eddie kept the wounded man from yanking off the cone till the anesthetic took hold.

Eddie shook his head as the sergeant's hands finally went limp. ”That's always so much fun,” he said.

”Yeah,” O'Doull agreed. ”How's he look, Granny?”

”It's a mess in there. Kneecap's smashed, medial collateral's cut,” McDougald answered. ”Can you get him down a little deeper? I want those leg muscles as relaxed as I can get 'em.”

”Will do.” O'Doull opened the valve on the ether cylinder a little more.

After a minute or so, McDougald gave him a thumbs-up. The medic worked quickly and skillfully, repairing what he could and removing what he couldn't repair. When he was through, he said, ”He'll never run the mile, but I think he'll walk . . . pretty well.”

”Looked that way to me, too,” O'Doull said. ”That medial collateral was nicely done. I don't think I could have got it together anywhere near as neat as you did.”

”Thanks, Doc.” McDougald's gauze mask hid most of his smile, but his eyes glowed. ”Had to try it. A knee's not a knee without a working medial collateral. It's not a repair that would do for a halfback, but for just getting around it ought to be strong enough.”

”They play football in Quebec, too. Well, sort of football: they've got twelve men on a side, and the end zones are big as all outdoors. But it's pretty much the same game. Guys get hurt the same way, that's for sure,” O'Doull said. ”I've had to patch up a couple of wrecked knees. I told the men I'd come after 'em with a sledgehammer if I ever caught 'em playing again.”

”Did they listen to you?” McDougald asked, amused interest in his voice.

”Are you serious? Quebecois are the stubbornest people on the face of the earth.” Leonard O'Doull knew he he sounded disgusted. ”Repairing a knee once isn't easy. Repairing it twice is d.a.m.n near impossible.” He flexed his none too impressive biceps. ”I'm getting pretty good with a sledgehammer, though.” sounded disgusted. ”Repairing a knee once isn't easy. Repairing it twice is d.a.m.n near impossible.” He flexed his none too impressive biceps. ”I'm getting pretty good with a sledgehammer, though.”

”I believe that.” McDougald and Eddie eased the wounded sergeant off the table. He would finish recovering farther back of the line. McDougald caught O'Doull's eye. ”Want to duck out for a b.u.t.t before the next poor sorry b.a.s.t.a.r.d comes in, Doc?”

”I'd love to. Let's-” But O'Doull stopped in midsentence, because the next poor sorry b.a.s.t.a.r.d came in right then.

One look made O'Doull wonder why the h.e.l.l the corpsmen had bothered hauling him all the way back here. He had a bullet wound-pretty plainly an entry wound-in his forehead, just below the hairline, and what was as obviously an exit wound, horrible with scalp and blood, in back.

Seeing O'Doull's expression, one of the stretcher-bearers said, ”His pulse and breathing are still strong, Doc. Maybe you can do something something for him, anyways.” for him, anyways.”

”Fat chance,” O'Doull muttered. Military hospitals still held men who'd got turned into vegetables by head wounds in the Great War. Some of them had a strong pulse and breathed on their own, too. Some of them would die of old age, but none would ever be a functioning human being again.

Then the wounded man sat up on the stretcher and said, ”Have any aspirins, buddy? I've got a h.e.l.l of a headache.”

”Jesus Christ!” Everybody in the aid tent except the fellow with the head wound said the same thing at the same time. One of the bearers and Eddie and O'Doull crossed themselves. O'Doull had seen a lot of things in his time, but never a man with a through-and-through head wound who sat up and made conversation.

Granville McDougald strode forward. He bent low and looked not at the soldier's injuries but at the scalp between them. Then he shook his head in slow wonder. ”I will be d.a.m.ned,” he said. ”I've heard of wounds like this, but I didn't think I'd ever run into one myself.”

”What is it, Granny?” O'Doull asked. He wanted to latch on to something, anything, but the idea of a dead man talking.

”Look, Doc. You can see for yourself.” McDougald's finger traced the injury. ”The slug must have gone in, then slid around the top of this guy's skull under the scalp till it exited back here. It didn't do a d.a.m.n thing more. It couldn't have, or he'd be dead as shoe leather.”

”I'm fine,” the soldier said. ”Except for that headache, anyhow. I asked you guys for aspirins once already.”

”Well, I'll be a son of a b.i.t.c.h,” O'Doull said, ignoring him. ”You're right. You've got to be right. That is the luckiest thing I have ever seen in my life. I thought he was a ghost for a second, I swear to G.o.d I did.” The rational part of his brain started working again. ”We'd better send him back for X-rays once we clean him up. He could have a fracture in there-though his head's so hard, he might not.”

”What the h.e.l.l's that supposed to mean?” the wounded man demanded.

”If you didn't have a thick skull, pal, that bullet might've gone through instead of around,” O'Doull told him. ”Can you get up on the table by yourself? We're going to want to get some disinfectant on that and st.i.tch you up and bandage you. You've got a story you can tell your grandchildren, that's for sure.”

The soldier walked to the table and sat down. ”You ain't doin' nothin' to me till I get my aspirins, you hear?”

”Give him a couple, Eddie,” O'Doull said wearily. ”h.e.l.l, give him a slug of the medicinal brandy, too. If anybody ever earned it, he did.”

That produced the first thing besides loud indignation he'd got from the wounded man, who exclaimed, ”Now you're talkin', Doc! Want a smoke? I got these off a dead Confederate-f.u.c.k of a lot better'n what we make.”

O'Doull grabbed his hand before he could light a match. ”You don't want to do that in here,” the doctor said in gentle tones that camouflaged the panic inside. ”You're liable to blow us sky high if you do.”

After the little white pills and the knock of honey-colored hooch, the wounded man was willing to sit still while O'Doull patched him up. He grumbled about the way the doctor's novocaine burned before it numbed. He grumbled that he could feel the needle even after the novocaine started working. Except for complaining about his headache, he didn't grumble at all about getting shot in the head.

”Don't get the bandages over my eyes, dammit,” he said. O'Doull had to coax him back into the stretcher so the corpsmen could take him away-he wanted to walk.

Once he was gone, O'Doull let out a long sigh and said, ”Now I am am going to have that smoke, by G.o.d!” going to have that smoke, by G.o.d!”

”Me, too,” Granville McDougald said. They both left the tent to light up-and they both smoked Confederate tobacco, too.

O'Doull blew out a long plume of smoke. ”Great G.o.d in the foothills,” he said. ”Now I really have seen everything.”

”Yeah, well, you know what's gonna happen as well as I do, Doc,” McDougald said. ”They'll patch him up and they'll send him home till he finishes healing, and he'll be a nine days' wonder while he's there. And then he'll come back to the front, and he'll stop a sh.e.l.l burst with his nuts, and he won't have to worry about telling his grandchildren stories anymore.”

”Christ!” Whatever O'Doull had expected him to say, that wasn't it. ”And I thought this war was making me me cynical.” cynical.”

McDougald shrugged. ”You got out after 1917. You found yourself a nice little French gal and you settled down. I've worn the uniform all that time. I've got a long head start on you. The s.h.i.+t I've seen . . .” He shook his head. But then he shook it again in a different way. ”I'd never seen anything like that before, though. Talk about beating the odds! I'd heard of it. I knew it was possible. But I'd never seen it, and I never thought I would.”

”You sure were one up on me,” O'Doull said. ”When he rose up on the stretcher there, I figured he was Lazarus.”