I just nodded. I wasn’t going to get any answers from her. I could see a frosted glass window with wire mesh embedded in it, and when she left, I heard a distinctive click as she latched the door. I must be in a prison hospital ward of some sort. It still beat my last accommodations. Maybe I could call a lawyer from here.
Dinner proved to be some broth and juice. I was promised that if I was good, at my next meal I might get some Jell-O as a dessert. Wow, talk about your incentives! I could barely contain my excitement.
I think it was about an hour or two later when the nurse returned with a doctor. I wasn’t sure, since there wasn’t a clock in my cell, or whatever it was. Right after he said hello and introduced himself as Doctor Bancroft, I asked him, “Where am I? What’s happening?”
“We’ll get to that later,” he answered, dodging the question.
“Thanks, Colonel,” I said with a grimace. I knew I was still in a military prison, since he had eagles on his collars under his white coat.
He gave me an odd look at that, but started to examine me, while the nurse, who had first lieutenant’s bars on her collars, took notes and wrote things down. It was a fairly standard examination (“Does this hurt? Does that hurt?”) after which I learned a little about what was going on, at least regarding my condition.
The date was 24 November, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I had been in the hospital for four days now. The first three I had been sedated and unconscious while I healed up. I had gotten an intestinal infection from drinking polluted water, which was why I had the shivers and the runs in the cell, but it wasn’t clear whether I drank the polluted water on the hike back to civilization or in my basement cell. In fact, when I asked directly, Doctor Bancroft refused to discuss it. I was on an antibiotic regimen currently.
The bandages and tape on my left side were both to help my ribs heal (three were cracked, but not broken) and to cover the stitches in my side and back. They had opened me up to stitch up some lacerations in my left kidney, which had been discovered when I was pissing blood. A tube was still in place to drain off fluid. That was the extent of my internal injuries. Most of my torso was still a rainbow of colors from the beating and bruising. I was now moving from the mundane black and blue into greens and yellows. The doctor didn’t comment on my beating, just on the effects of it. He seemed very impressed that I was able to stand up when I was found. Me, not so much; his clinical detachment was starting to piss me off.
The worst damage was to my right knee, which was why it was wrapped and immobilized. Again, the doctor refused to comment on whether the damage was the result of my bad landing, or my jailer kicking me. Either way, it was serious. He suspected major ligament damage and tearing, and surgery was necessary, at least after I was strong enough.
“Oh, good. That way I’ll be able to walk to my hanging,” I told him. He didn’t respond.
He also didn’t respond when I pressed him on where I was. After the examination he simply left, taking the nurse with him. He did tell me, however, that it was about 1600, and I was going to be eating soft foods for a while. Since I was conscious again, about half the tubes and IVs could be pulled, but I still had a catheter in, and solids wouldn’t be a good idea until we could do something where I could walk again, as in walk to the bathroom. At the prospect of using a bedpan for Number Two, suddenly broth and Jell-O looked like good choices!
I slept fitfully that night. My rest was not helped by a nurse taking my temperature every four hours. Breakfast was at 0700. I at least could get the nurses to tell me what time it was when they made their rounds.
At 0800, my delicious repast of juice and yogurt consumed, the latch on my door clicked and my nurse came in. She took my temperature and blood pressure, and then took my tray away. However, as she was leaving, another voice sounded, one that seemed vaguely familiar, saying he was entering, and we were to be left alone. I turned around to see who was coming in.
It was the colonel who I had saluted in the cell in basement. He must have been the one who got me out of there. He came over to the side of the bed and said, “Good morning, Captain Buckman. My name is Featherstone. How are you feeling?”
I eyed this man warily. “I’m feeling better now than I was in that basement.”
He nodded and smiled. “Yes, I expect you are. That’s really why I’m here, to talk to you about that. I’m from the JAG Corps in Washington.”
Well, that explained a few things. Dorne must have been able to contact somebody after all, although whether that was good or not, I didn’t know yet. Featherstone had the distinctive patch of the Military District of Washington on his sleeve, a naked sword superimposed over the Washington Monument. The standing joke was that whenever they forgot where they were, they were to look at their sleeves so they could look for the monument and find their way home. The sword was to make a bunch of pencil-pushers feel brave.
“Okay. Where am I?”
“You’re at the base hospital at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba,” he replied calmly.
I wasn’t so calm. My most recent memories of Gitmo were from after 9/11, when it became a military prison for terrorists and anybody else the government could convince itself was a national security threat. Ultimately it would house more American citizens than Arab terrorists. “GITMO! You sent me to Gitmo!? Jesus, the Army wasn’t bad enough, you had to give me to the Navy!?” Featherstone laughed loudly at this. At least one of us was enjoying himself.
“What the hell am I doing in Gitmo?” I asked. “Doesn’t Leavenworth have a prison ward in the hospital?”
“Oh, this isn’t the prison ward. Actually it’s the NP ward, neuropsychiatric. That’s why it’s all locked up.”
Sweet Jesus! This just kept getting better and better! “The psych ward? You put me in the psych ward?! It’s not enough to put me in prison, you have to label me as a Section 8, too!? Why don’t you just shoot me with a silver bullet and drive a stake through my heart while you’re at it!” I looked away from him for a moment and contemplated my surroundings. I turned back and said, “You know, screw you! I want a lawyer. Get me a lawyer and get the fuck out of here. I don’t care who you are. I want a lawyer and I want one now.”
Surprisingly, Featherstone just stood there and smiled, and didn’t complain about my cursing a superior officer. “Captain, relax, you’re not under arrest, and you’re not in the NP ward.”
“Yeah? You just told me I was in the nut shack. If I’m not in jail, then get me a goddamned phone! I’m calling my wife!” Marilyn wouldn’t understand this, but she could call a lawyer for me.
He held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Relax, Captain Buckman. I simply had you stashed here while I sorted out this clusterfuck. As soon as we’re done talking, I’ll get you a telephone. Just relax and let’s talk first.”
I nodded warily, and he relaxed some. “Good. Now, just hold on a second, this is going to take some time.” He went back to the door and opened it, making me figure that he was leaving me and locking me back in jail. Instead he simply opened it and yelled out to a nurse for a stool. She brought it back and he thanked her, and then he carried it over by my bed. I was still sitting upright from breakfast, and now he could look me in the eye.
Featherstone reached into a pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels and a lighter. He searched around and scrounged up a plastic cup, which he poured some water into. Then he lit up a cigarette, right there in the hospital! I mean, yeah, it wasn’t like later years, when the health Nazis would have arrested him, but still! “You mind?” he asked, seeing the look on my face. “That was a rhetorical question. I’m a colonel, you’re a captain. I don’t care if you mind. Want one?”