"I'm real impressed. Been a field medic myself in two wars. That don't mean I haul patients around makin' unauthorized transfers or sassin' the real doctors. What's your name and your outfit, soldier?"
"Spec-6 Charles W. Heron, Special Forces medical supervisor assigned to C-I operations detachment attached from B-53 Special Missions Advisory Force."
"Uh huh," Baker said. "And who might this man be? Your C.O.?"
"Sergeant Baker, Specialist-uh-" Major Canon said. "Whoever this patient is, don't you think we'd better make up our minds where he's going and get him back to bed?"
"I'm tellin' you, Joe, there's no head in'llry," the redhead said.
"I'll have to clear that with Major Chalmers, Doc."
"Chalmers! That asshole has his head so far up his-"
The man seemed to be a good judge of character anyway.
I remembered belatedly to try to reassure the patient, the object of all of the argument. It took me a moment to recognize old Xe. His color was much improved, his head unbandaged, and his face less sunken. His eyes were open and alert, seemingly staring at the ceiling, though as I watched I saw that he shifted them from the redhead to Joe to Baker like someone watching a three-way Ping-Pong match. I probably wouldn't have recognized him at all in a couple of days-legless, bald elderly Vietnamese men weren't uncommon at the 83rd. But his hands were crossed at his chest, over the medal, in the gesture I remembered well from the night before last.
"Way to go, papasan," I said, patting his shoulder. "You sure healed in a hurry."
"You should watch how you touch him," Heron told me. "It's disrespectful to touch a holy man casually."
"You're the one who's disrespectful-" Baker began, but Heron wasn't paying any attention. The old man was speaking to him in a soft, hoarse voice.
When Heron looked back up, his face wore an odd expression, as if he was trying to assess me, and at the same time resented me.
Marge, who had been on the phone, reappeared. "Neuro got swamped last night with ICU overflow, apparently. When I told Captain Simpson that we had one of her patients over here, she spoke to Major Chalmers. He said he didn't know why we didn't take the old man in the first place, and if you need help with the mild concussion the admitting physician misdiagnosed as a depressed skull fracture, Chalmers will be happy to consult with you, Joe."
Mai helped Heron put Xe to bed. I transcribed the orders, trying to hurry so I could talk to Heron before he left. It occurred to me that he was the mystery man who had called in the air evac on old Xe's behalf. But when I looked up from my chart, the old man was sleeping fitfully in the bed between the woman who had lost her children and the whiny little boy. I thought it might have been the light, but he looked sicker and wearier than he had a few moments before.
Joe Glangelo, when he returned to the ward, evidently agreed with me, because he ordered a new antibiotic, an extra I.V., and two units of blood for the old guy and scheduled him for surgery as soon as he was judged strong enough to withstand anesthesia.
We were moderately busy those first few days I worked ortho. One morning the husband of the woman with the fractured clavicles simply appeared and packed her off. Marge called Joe, and Joe, with help from Mal, tried to talk the man out of it, but the husband just gave a tight bow and a tight thanks. Mal said the woman would feel better with her own people and would want to be present at the funeral of her children.
Personally, I thought the woman looked as if she would die of grief very soon and the man looked as if he blamed us for the tragedy and himself for ever becoming involved with "our" side. Which irritated me. "Our"
side was supposed to be the side of most of the South Vietnamese, wasn't it? We were helping them, not the other way around. And he wouldn't even let us try to repair some of the damage.
Nor was he the only one who didn't want our help. The day was scheduled for surgery, the O.R. tech wheeled him away and then, a short time later, came back scratching his head, wondering if we'd seen the boy.
Voorhees and Sergeant Baker divided up the hospital and started searching, but a few minutes later a sergeant I vaguely recognized carried a wailing Ahn back onto the ward. "I understand this might belong to you ladies," the sergeant said. I showed him where to deposit the bor while Marge tried to call Joe in O.R.
I took Ahn's vital signs, thinking Joe would want to know, but I couldn't hear much. The kid shrank from my hands and bellowed at me, all the time watching me with a mixture of fear and loathing. I couldn't understand it. I hadn't done anything to him.
The ARVN in the next bed blew a smoke ring and smirked at us as we passed.
The sergeant said, "Say, you're the lady we brought home from the club."
I rounded the nurses' desk and he poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned over the chart rack.
Marge looked up and said, "The O.R. supervisor says Ahn will have to be rescheduled. When they couldn't find him, they gave the room to Dr.
Stein for a gut wound. Some vertebral damage, so Joe's scrubbed in with him. He said he's glad we found the little darling, though. Guess we can call for a tray."
The sergeant, who looked vaguely like an Irish prizefighter, was giving Marge an appreciative once-over. "This major looks like a nice lady to me, Lieutenant. Have you asked her yet about the weekend?"
"Not yet-"
"What about the weekend?" Marge asked.
"Well, ma'am, we're having a sort of a special do over there, and my executive officer has asked me to extend an invitation to you for Saturday night but was hoping we could have the loan of this young lady over at the company so's she could do a little flight training in a crane-kind of a goodwill mission. He's already checked about the guest room with the commanding officer. It's our anniversary weekend. Hell, we even got a Filipino band."
"What time's the party?" Marge asked.
"We'll send birds to pick the ladies up at 1900 hours. Skip evening mess and we'll barbecue you some numbah one steaks."
"You want to go, lieutenant?" she asked me.
"Sure," I said. "I just thought, since I hadn't been here very long, I might not be up for a weekend yet-"
"Shoot, girl, you make it sound like you just got in country. I hadn't planned on getting you, so I didn't count on you for the weekend. Go ahead and have it off, but if we have a big push the minute you get back we'll know who to blame."
Things were definitely looking up. Nobody looked over my shoulder or breathed down my neck and somehow I managed very well without the supervision. Even the noontime sessions with Blaylock weren't all that painful, though she looked mildly insulted when I did know the answers to the math questions she drilled me on. Voorhees just happened to mistakenly order an extra lunch tray every day I missed my turn at the mess hall.
Friday evening during my shift, Tommy Dean came to the ward and spent the last hour drinking coffee while I finished report. I collected my swim tote, into which I'd packed a couple of dresses and 'letr'es,
'nclud'ng the Shalimar perfume I got for under ten dollars at tol the PX. The chopper was waiting for us on pad by the back doors of the emergency room. The dust flew higher than our heads as we ducked under the thundering blades. Tommy Dean flew in the copilot position and I took the backseat, accepting earphones from the crew chief with mimed thanks.