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.
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?"