She nodded, thoughtful and without the edge of fear that most locals showed when gunpowder came up. "What are the characteristic wounds?"
Clemens heard a chuckle from one of the other doctors. Nevins- she spoke pretty good Akkadian too. He felt a big grin spreading himself. She knows the right questions, at least!
"Tissue trauma, of course," he answered. "Long tracks of damaged tissue, with foreign matter carried deep into the body. Treatment is to remove all matter and debride the damaged tissue." You cut out everything that had been torn, and you eliminated the necrosis that was the greatest danger for gangrene. "Broken bone-shattered, splintered as well as broken."
A two-horse ambulance trotted up outside, swaying on its springs. Corpsmen sprang out and brought in the stretchers. Clemens ran over, swallowing. I hate doing triage, he thought, and then pushed the emotion away. He'd pay for that later, but later it wouldn't hurt his patients.
There were five figures on the stretchers, one thrashing and moaning. "Morphia here!" he snapped, continuing his quick examination.
All arrow wounds; two in the extremities, no immediate danger.
"Sedate and stabilize," he said. "I'll take the sucking chest wound. Nevins, you're on the gut. Thurtontan, you're on the one in the face- I think you can save that eye. Let's go, people!"
Some distant corner of his mind wondered how the fighting was going, but that wasn't his proper concern. Everyone who came to him had already lost their battle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
June-July, Year 9 A.E.
"Hey, hup!" Kenneth Hollard said, tapping his camel on the joint of its foreleg.
At the second tap the beast folded itself like an organic leggo set and knelt, front legs first. He stepped off, whacked it on the nose with his riding crop as it considered biting him-it was a skill you acquired quickly if you wanted to keep a whole hide-and looked right and left at the belt of reeds. They were ten feet high and about the thickness of a man's thumb, their tops feathery and swaying in a breeze that couldn't be felt here on the mosquito-buzzing edge of the damp ground. The air was heavy with their green, papery smell and the mealy odor of mud. A few paces forward, and the ground began to squish slightly under his boots. Bubbles of decay rose and popped in it, like porridge boiling very slowly.
"Reed marsh, then cultivated land, then the river, and the Assyrians on the other side, the scouts report," Prince Kashtiliash said from his chariot. His silvered chain mail rippled in the harsh sunlight, almost too bright to look at, but he'd sensibly left the helmet off for now. "It is likely that they have crossed the river themselves, to hinder our passage through the marsh."
"Kat?" Hollard said.
Kat wore the combat engineer hat in this outfit, as well as commanding Second Battalion; the Corps wasn't big enough for much specialization. She and half a dozen assistants had been working with theodolites and laser range finders. Marvelous little gadgets, but eventually they'll go bust, he thought.
"There's a natural levee along the river," she said. "The land drops off a bit to this belt of swamp, then there's another slight rise, and then it's all downhill out into the desert."
Ken lifted his hat and used it as a sunshade as he looked around, relishing the tiny moment of coolness as moving air struck his saturated scalp. Thank God for brush cuts, he thought abstractedly-everyone had one now, the medicos had made it regulation here.
"Drain, fascines, then a pontoon bridge?" he said.
She nodded. "We could use some hands for this, though." A glance upward. "We could use some air reconnaissance, too."
"If wishes were horses, we wouldn't have to use sewage for fertilizer," he replied.
The Kassite prince had been waiting patiently… although Hollard suspected he'd picked up more English than he let on. Certainly the hundred young scribes the king had assigned to learn it had made remarkable progress; but then, just learning to read in this country required a good memory, and the literate all learned Sumerian as well-though nobody had spoken it in a thousand years.
Kashtiliash was also sneaking an occasional fascinated look at Major Hollard, Kenneth Hollard noticed. Well, I can't fault his taste, he thought. The problem was, he had a horrible suspicion that Kat was returning the glances. Christ, the complications! I like this guy; he's a fighter, and smart, and pretty decent for a local… but Christ, Sin-ina-mati would raise a lot less in the way of problems!
"We'll cut through this section of ground in two parallel trenches," Kathryn said in English. "That will drain some of the swamp. We'll push the trenches through to the drier ground by the river. Then when we get to the river, we'll build a bridge of boats."
Kashtiliash tugged at his beard. "The Diyala is wider than bowshot here," he said. "That means… oh, I see."
His grin wouldn't have looked out of place on the lions he hunted, and the Nantucketers answered with an identical baring of teeth. They were all contemplating what would happen if the Assyrians tried to block passage of a river too wide for bows to shoot across… but well within range for rifles and cannon.
"Do cross river. How would you do, Prince?" Kathryn asked. Her Akkadian was much less fluent than Ken's, but it had improved considerably.
"Goatskins," the prince answered. "Men swimming with inflated goatskins, or rafts of them. A bridge of riverboats, if they can be brought up by water in time. A bridge of bricks, if we had much time and no opposition. Round boats of hides over saplings, such as can be carried in the baggage train."
The Nantucketers nodded.
"If some soldiers to work, we could have?" Kathryn asked. "And carts-tools, and three, four tens of carts. Dry soil is needful."
The prince nodded and turned to give orders. Many of the messengers who ran to deliver them were on horseback now, with saddles made at Ur Base. Before long a swarm of peasant levies came up, men in linen kilts and tunics-some stripped to their loincloths in the heat, as they would have been when working their fields at home. The better-equipped among them had bronze-headed spears and wicker shields; many carried bows or slings, and most had knives. Gear ranged on down to hoes and clubs, but the men looked strong and willing. The chariot-born noble who commanded them, and probably owned the land they worked, looked hot-anyone would, in a leather tunic sewn with brass scales and a metal helmet, in this heat-and decidedly less cooperative as he went to one knee and bowed his head.
"Command me, Prince of the House of Succession," he said.
Kashtiliash nodded regally. "Your men will work under the direction of this officer of our allies to force a passage to the river."
The nobleman did a quick double take. "Under a woman, Lord Prince?" he said.
Thunderclouds began to gather on the prince's hawk-nosed face. "You will obey a purple-arsed Egyptian ape if I command it!" he snapped.
Kathryn cleared her throat. "Prince?" she said. He looked over at her. "With granting leave, will handle this."
Kenneth Hollard nodded. Kashtiliash caught the gesture, shrugged, and signed assent.
"Settle this quickly," he said, and to the nobleman: "The war will not wait on your vanity."
Kathryn tapped the Babylonian nobleman on one shoulder. "You have problem, working under me?" she said mildly.
The Babylonian sneered. "Women work under me," he said, accompanying it with a gesture.
She smiled, shrugged, and kicked him in the crotch. Her brother recognized the technique-sekka no atari, to strike without warning.
Well, thank you, Master Musashi, as the commodore would say, he thought. Aloud, he continued to Kashtiliash, "Doesn't pay to underestimate an opponent."