I’d like to say that I took the next twenty minutes stoically, never uttering a whimper. That might not be totally true. I didn’t cry. I did curse several times. I managed to control my bodily functions. I was given a fairly thorough thumping, but only to my midsection. I think the idea was to soften me up without any damage to my face, so that I would be my usual boyish and charming self in any photos. After enough time lapsed I was just a mass of pain, but I was still quite conscious. Then the sergeant decided to kick my legs, and he connected with my right knee. I remember screaming, and then everything seemed to go black.
I came back to consciousness very slowly, and it was very dark and quiet outside when I did. The bitter taste in my mouth told me that I had thrown up at least once, and there was a wetness and a stench to my jumpsuit that told me I must have pissed and shit myself. I ached all over, even in places that hadn’t been hit. Even worse, whatever was living in the water was now living in me. Despite the tropical heat, I was shivering with chills, and I felt myself crap my prisoner’s jumpsuit again as I passed out a second time.
When I came to the second time, it was because there was some noise out in the stairwell that led down here to the dungeon, which is what I had taken to calling my home. I was half laying on the foul mattress, and half laying in the water on the floor of my cell, and I was starting to wonder if maybe I had been a mite hasty in my dismissal of a plea bargain. At least it would be drier in Fort Leavenworth.
I heard, “Open this door now, corporal. That’s an order!” being barked from the other side of the door. I turned my head in that direction, and that hurt. Still, it was a voice that was new to me, and I would be damned if I would be found laying in my own filth. I crawled over to the bars on my cage and tried to pull myself up.
“JESUS H. CHRIST! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!” screamed the voice. I wasn’t focusing all that well, but I had managed to get my left leg under me and by holding onto the bars on the cage, had gotten to a semi-vertical position. My right leg seemed to be nonfunctional, although sheer agony radiated throughout it.
“GET THAT DOOR OPEN! NOW!” yelled the voice.
I focused in on the voice. It was a stocky colonel in a dress uniform, wading through the water towards me. He was accompanied by the MP corporal, but now the corporal looked very nervous. I vaguely heard him say, “Yes, sir,” and he came over and started playing with the padlock.
“Sweet suffering Jesus!” exclaimed the colonel.
I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew I was in very bad shape. Left alone, I could possibly die. I had seen dying people before. Still, I had had enough. If I was going out, I was going to go out in style. At least Marilyn and Charlie would be taken care of.
Holding onto the bars with my left hand, I drew myself into as vertical a condition as I could manage, and then brought my right hand up to my forehead. My ribs were screaming, and I knew something had to be cracked in there, maybe even broken. I didn’t care. I held the salute, and the colonel stared at me.
“What in the world are you doing, captain?” he asked me.
“My name is Carling Parker Buckman the Second, Captain, Battery B, 1st Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. I am a serving officer in the United States Army, having neither resigned my commission nor been relieved of it by competent authority. I don’t know who you are but you either return my salute or be damned to you!” I just no longer cared. He stared at me slack jawed, and then things went very dark again.
Chapter 59: Colonel Featherstone
When I woke again, everything seemed very bright. Not the bright at the end of the tunnel, just bright, like a bright room. By the time I got around to opening my eyes, I fell asleep again. It seemed like this went on a few more times before I managed to get my eyes open enough to see where I was. I could see a white ceiling of some sort, and I tried to move, but I couldn’t move. I could feel things, but I couldn’t move. I was able to turn my head, and rise up slightly, and it looked like I was in a hospital room.
I must be alive, I thought to myself. If I had died, I didn’t think Heaven was a hospital room, although the odds were very long that I would be anywhere near Heaven. No, the reverse was far more likely, and while Hell might indeed be a hospital room, it didn’t seem likely. Maybe Limbo is a hospital room, but I was Lutheran, sort of, and we don’t believe in Limbo or Purgatory or any of the other Catholic waiting rooms to eternity.
I tried to move some more, and managed to raise my head a little more. I was strapped to the bed. Well, at least my new prison cell was more comfortable than my last one. That wore me out a little, and I fell back asleep.
The next time I woke up was when a nurse was in the room. She must have been fiddling with something on me, because my eyes came open and she noticed. She smiled brightly at that, and said, “Oh, good! You’re coming awake! How are you feeling?”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t even croak out an answer. She brought over a small cup of water and a straw. “Try this.” It was very difficult to drink that way, but I got enough in me to make a response. “Would you like to be up some?”
This time I managed to croak out, “Yes.”
She went behind my head and cranked on the bed, and slowly my head raised up. When I was at about a thirty degree angle, she stopped and we tried again with the water. I drained the cup. It tasted like ambrosia. “Thank you,” I whispered. I cleared my throat, and tried again. “Thank you.” That sounded a little better, almost human.
“A little more?” she asked.
I sipped some more water, and worked it around and over my lips. I could feel with my tongue that somebody, probably a nurse, had rubbed some Vaseline or something on my lips to keep them from cracking. I cleared my throat some more, and said, “Thank you. What happened? Where am I?” Now I sounded almost myself again.
The nurse looked at me nervously. “Do you know your name?”
“Huh? I’m Carl Buckman, Captain Carl Buckman, 1st of the 319th. Why? Where am I? What is this place?” She looked relieved. Maybe she thought I had amnesia. “What’s going on? Am I still in prison?” I looked around the room. My hands were Velcroed to the sidebars of the bed, which was why I couldn’t move them. Another reason I couldn’t move was that my right leg seemed to be wrapped in bandage and elevated like it was in traction. I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
The nurse was still trying to answer the prison comment, when I rattled my arms against the bedrails briefly. “Any chance you can unstrap me? I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”
That at least got another smile. Pretty girl. “We did that while you were asleep, to keep you from messing with the IVs and lines. If you promise to leave them alone, I’ll let you loose.”
“I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman, or at least as an officer. The gentleman part is questionable at best.” I smiled and waggled my eyebrows at her.
“I think I’m safe enough for the moment,” she replied, and unstrapped my hands.
I promptly used them to scratch myself, moving slowly because of the intravenous lines. “You have no idea how good that feels!” She laughed as I scratched my body and arms. I wasn’t in very much pain, although my torso seemed very tender, and I could feel bandages all over my left side. That stopped me. That was new.
“You never said where I was, or what’s happening,” I told her.
The smile disappeared. “You’ll need to talk to the doctor. I’ll let him know you’re awake. I’ll bring you dinner in a few minutes,” she told me, glancing at her wristwatch.