There was a ready chorus of assent. Wingstead went on, 'Any bright ideas you may have, pass them along to Mick or Mister Hammond or me. Any medical questions direct to the Sister.' I smiled briefly at the division between those who were 'Mister' and those who were not, even in these fraught moments; another example of the gulf between their country and mine.
'When we've seen them safe at the hospital in Kanja, we'll turn round and set off towards the Katali. We reckon on only two extra days for the mission. Thank you, chaps.'
Mick McGrath rose and bellowed.
'Right, lads! Five minutes to finish your beer and then let's be at it. There's plenty to be done.'
As Wingstead and I walked off, well pleased with the way our bombshell of news had gone down, Sister Ursula waylaid us, having, no doubt got all she wanted from Ben Hammond.
'Mister Mannix, I want transport back to the hospital, please.'
'No you don't,' I said. 'You're wanted here. The crew is going to be pestering you with questions and ideas, and Geoff and I have got quite a few of our own.'
'I'll be needed at the hospital.'
'I'm sure you will. But Sister Mary is there with the others and you're the only one here. And the rate your Doctor Kat works, there'll probably be a first load of patients arriving within the hour. The lads will work under your direction, yours and Ben's that is. They've got awnings to rig up, bedding to get cut, all sorts of stuff. And you have to choose a spot for your operating theatre.'
'I've done that already.' But she wasn't stubborn when faced with plain good sense, and agreed readily enough to stay and get on with her end of the job, for which I was grateful. If it came to the crunch I didn't think I would ever win out against her.
We all worked hard and the rig was transformed. Sadiq's men rounded up some of the local women who knew how to thatch with palm leaf fronds and set them to work, silently at first and then as the strangeness and the fear began to wear off, singing in ululating chorus. As it took shape the rig began to look pretty strange wearing a selection of thatched umbrellas. I was amused to think what Kemp would have to say: he had gone off to check the road leading northwards out of town.
Awnings were being made for the tops of each of the trucks as well, and reeds from the river were beginning to pile up to make bedding for each of the patients as we found places for them. All four tractors were similarly bedecked. Even the tank McGrath had salvaged was to carry its share of patients, perched in the turret. The gun had been ditched once it was clear that there was no ammunition for it. I doubt if you could see anything in the world more incongruous than a thatched tank.
Sadiq had unearthed a couple of old trucks which Ben Hammond pronounced as serviceable and we thatched one of those. The other already had a canvas awning. There were few other vehicles in Kodowa that had escaped either the strafing or the fires.
There was moderately good news about fuel. Outside the town we found a full 4000-gallon tanker. It must have been abandoned by its driver at the onset of the air attack. Both it and our own tanker escaped thatching because I jibbed at carrying bedridden patients on top of potential bombs. The water tanker wasn't thatched either, being the wrong shape for carrying people.
Sister Ursula was endlessly busy. She supervised the cutting of bedding, to make sure that none was wet and that the worst of the insect life was shaken out of it, checked through our food supplies and made a complete inventory, rounded up towels and sheets from everybody, and selected a place on the rig for Dr Kat's mobile surgery, the top of the foremost tractor cab, as being the only really flat surface and the one least likely to get smothered in the dust we would stir up in our progress. It was, she pointed out, very exposed but in our supplies we had a couple of pup tents and one of these, after some tailoring, made a fairly passable enclosed space. The other formed a screen for the patients' toilet, a galvanized iron bucket.
It was all quite astonishing.
The Sister then proceeded to go through the camp like a one-woman locust swarm, sweeping up everything she thought might be of any use. Every pair of scissors she could find she confiscated; she almost denuded the commissary wagon of knives; and she kept young Bing on the run, setting him to boil water to sterilize the things she found.
Once done, they were wrapped in sheets of polythene. Everything as sterile as she could make it. And then they were stored in a corner of our freezer, to slow down bacterial activity. She confiscated packets of paperclips and went through Kemp's Land Rover, removing clips from every piece of paper in sight, garnering sticky tape, elastic bands and string. Our several first aid boxes all went into her hoard.
Military trucks began arriving from the hospital carrying, not people yet, but goods; food, medications, bandaging, implements, dishes and hardware of all sorts. Among other things was a contraption on a trolley that Sister Ursula dismissed with annoyance.
'That thing doesn't work. Hasn't for a long time. It's a waste of space.'
'What is it, Sister?' It was Ben Hammond who asked, and who seemed to be in constant attendance, not in Mick McGrath's proprietorial fashion but as head gofer to a factory foreman. Her demands fascinated and challenged him.
'It is, or was, a portable anaesthetic machine.'
'If it were fixed, would it be of use?' She nodded and he fixed it. He was a damned good mechanic.
The Sister found a place for Max Otterman and he was gently lifted onto his pile of bedding; Wyvern Transport Hospital's first inmate. He'd been showing some signs of recovering consciousness in the past few hours but the portents were not good; he looked and sounded awful.
I kept busy and tried not to think about him, putting him in the same mental folder in which lurked other worries: the state of the nation, the progress of war, the possibility of aircraft bombing us as we sat helpless. Our fuel or water might run out, there could be sickness or mechanical breakdowns. There was no communication with the world apart from the unreliable and sporadic messages received on the Captain's radio. I kept going, knowing that when I stopped the problems would close in.
It was a long, complex and exhausting day. There was little talking as evening fell and we ate thoughtfully and turned in. I lay fighting off despair, and even coined a phrase for it: Mannix' Depression. But I couldn't raise a laugh at my own joke. The odds against us seemed to be stacked far too high.
CHAPTER 12
There was another change of plan that afternoon. We were to move the rig to the hospital rather than risk moving the patients before it was necessary. At daybreak we got going, the oddly transformed convoy passing slowly through the town that wasn't a town any more, to Katabisirua's headquarters beyond. The command car bumped over rubble as we passed the remains of the shattered tanks which we had laboured to shift and crunched through cinders and debris in what had been the main street of Kodowa. The place still stank of death and burning.
We passed a truncated and blackened telegraph pole from which a body dangled. Sadiq said laconically, 'A looter, sir.'
'Have you had many?'
'A few. He was one of the first. He discourages the others, as they say.'
Every now and then Sadiq's obviously broader than average education showed through. For a locally trained lower echelon officer of a somewhat backward country he was surprisingly well-read in military matters. It seemed a pity that he had been given so little room to do his own thinking, but was still tied by the bonds of discipline.
I saw a sign on a blackened but still standing shop front and a soldier who stood in front of the door, cradling a gun. 'Will you stop a minute, Captain? May I go in there?'