“Bullshit! That’s the way he looks every morning.” Mayweather cracked in, clearly less concerned about the risk of shock than the medic was.
Despite his youthfulness, the medic remained immune to Mayweather’s ongoing banter and gently applied a touch of pressure to Stephen’s leg. “There’s a bullet wound in this leg here and it’s cracked your femur bone. We have an exit wound but the femoral artery didn’t get hit so the wound is not critical.”
“You gonna need to stick, I mean, stitch that up?” Stephen asked, while noticing that his tongue wasn’t moving at the right pace and he became aware of how much he was slurring his own words.
“Not unless you’re looking to get benefits as an amputee.” The medic quipped, “No, we’re not going to stitch anything in this contaminated environment. We’d just be making a little home for some nasty infection.”
“I’m good!” Stephen allowed his head to drop back against the barrier, “Pass on the stitches.”
We’ll get you back to the med site and they’ll do the full clean and closure. I’ve got pressure locked on the leg to stop the bleeding. It’s a quick job and it’ll hold, but I want to come back and redress this. Right now, I need to get back to Corporal Waters over there and make sure he’s still stabilized. When the aid team lands to get Waters, I’ll come back over and check on you.” He must have questioned Stephen’s awareness because the medic leaned in and peered up into his face. “You copy, Sergeant?”
Stephen peered through his squinted eye and nodded, “Yeah. Good copy. Of course, make sure Waters is good.”
Someone else said something too hard for him to hear. Mayweather was starting to kneel down next to Stephen when he glanced over his shoulder and stood to grab a radio being handed to him, “Yeah, let me call it in.”
Stephen looked up at his friend and cracked a smile. All around, he could still hear gunfire. It sounded to Stephen as if the .50 caliber machine guns on that M1 were getting some good use. In the midst of everything, that sound made him smile. Mayweather was looking in the direction of the gunfire and responded, “Roger that, Horseman 6. This is Venom 2-7, over.”
Stephen picked up on Mayweather’s use of the commander’s call sign and knew their little soiree was grabbing some high-level attention.
“That’s correct. Venom 2-1 has been recovered. Both men are alive and accounted for, over.”
Alive. How good it was to hear that word. Waters would certainly need a lot of work, but both of them were alive right now and that was already more than Stephen had hoped for just minutes before.
“Correct. Yes. Roger that. We still have combatants occupying nearby buildings. They’re using small arms and mortar rounds from multiple elevated positions. Yes. No. Not to worry.” Stephen could tell Mayweather was becoming agitated by the curt way he responded to the barrage of questions.
“We won’t. Roger that, you have my word we won’t drop all the buildings in this city. Yes. I understand we’ll probably have to clean up our mess here.” Mayweather paused to hear what was clearly good news. He responded with resounding enthusiasm. “Absolutely! Gunships would be very much appreciated.” Mayweather covered the mic on the radio and with a smile bigger than his face would allow, he mouthed the word ‘Apaches’ to Stephen.
Stephen was pretty sure the mother of all migraines was making her way into his brain. Showing signs of a struggle, he mustered a limited respond with raise of his thumb.
“Roger that.” Mayweather confirmed, “Yes, we grabbed Sergeant Lantz. Affirmative. No, they had to enter the building. The Marines found him unresponsive but he appears to be coming to now.” Mayweather nodded his head to Stephen in a back and forth in an annoyed motion with an expression that imitated teenage rebellion. He focused at the ground next to Stephen and continued to answer the senior officer’s interrogation. “Negative. Sergeant Lantz grabbed Waters. Yes. That’s accurate. Correct, I did say he was unresponsive. No. There’s only one man here named Sergeant Lantz. Yes. Well, Sergeant Lantz had the wherewithal to bind himself to his teammate and fasten their LBE harnesses together. Our men didn’t have to go looking for Corporal Waters because Sergeant Lantz already had him. No, Sergeant Lantz was unresponsive. It took two men just to get them out of there.”
The explosion of a mortar round rocked the earth in the near distance and Stephen knew Mayweather’s adrenaline was spiking. “Say again? Say again, Horseman 6? I’m sorry. Did you ask why?” Mayweather listened intently before standing tall and smiling.
The smile was too big. Stephen knew the platoon sergeant had just popped a filter and the conversation was about to go south.
“Why… why you’re asking me? Because he’s one hardcore ass-kicking son of a bitch, that’s why!”
Almost immediately, Mayweather quickly caught on that a bit too much of his personality may have carried over the line and sheepishly followed up with, “umm… I mean, he’s one hardcore ass-kicking son of a bitch… sir.” Having enjoyed his moment of outburst, Mayweather turned away to privately finish his conversation and prepare for the tongue lashing which would come from his multiple breaches of protocol.
Stephen looked to the opposite side and saw Chelp, Hilton and Hooper. The young medic was behind them attending to Waters. Chelp had a wrap over his head and Hilton had already been fitted with a makeshift sling on his arm. Each had a mask of blood and Iraqi desert blended into their complexions. Stephen tasted his own blood again as he smiled and winked the one eye he could open, “You guys… you look like shit.”
Chelp quickly shot back, “Ready to go back in when you are, Sarge!”
Less enthusiastically and sucking in air through labored breaths, Hooper grunted with a nod to Chelp, “I think this mountain of dog turd over here cracked my sternum.”
Chelp unsympathetically laughed at Hooper, “That’s alright; you can say what you want now. Eventually, you’re gonna name your first born after me.”
“My first born? Maybe a kidney stone.” Hooper responded.
“How ’bout a dog?”
“Deal.”
“Hooah.” Chelp confirmed.
Hilton’s deep voice overtook the rushed triage location, “And think, this heart, all evil shed away. A pulse in the eternal mind, no less. Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; her sights and sounds…”
“Hilton!” Pausing from the task of securing their perimeter, Tomlison looked up from behind the scope of his rifle and leaned across the injured bodies of his squad mates. “Hey buddy, you do realize you’re American and not English, right?”
Shifting from the stoic poet to his muscle-head persona, Hilton angled his head toward Tomlison and responded with his intimidating deep bass tone, “It’s Rupert Brooke, you uncultured dolt.”
“I’m just saying,” shrugged Tomlison as his eye returned to his scope. “You’re an American… who happens to be of African descent… fighting through a desert in Iraq while quoting old dead guys from England.”
“Hell,” chimed in Hooper. “What’s one more country? Hilton, please continue.”
Nodding to Hooper and bearing a proud smile, the poet continued. “…dreams happy as her day; and laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness. In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”
Stephen smiled at the bond his men shared. They had all made it out of that hell-house. Perhaps, not in one piece, but they had all made it out and made it out together. He rested his head against the concrete and soothed his wounded lip with his tongue to ease the dryness.
Paroled from his report to command, Mayweather returned to Stephen and the others. “Damn! I tell ya. Apparently, Colonel all-up-my-ass just wants to stay informed. At least that’s what he calls it. But since when does a combat zone SitRep get packaged with a proctology exam!”