“No! Don’t give him anything to drink. OK?”
Dave put the bottle back down. “Yeah.”
“OK. Tell me where your friend was shot.”
“In the stomach, just above his waist.”
“Can you see blood anywhere else? Look carefully.” Dave checked Perri all over.
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you get his shirt open and have a look at the wound for me?”
“He’s all curled up.”
“You need to be careful, but I need you to have a look for the bullet wound and describe it to me Dave. Can you do that?”
“Yeah. Just wait.” He put down the radio handset and pulled aside Perri’s jacket, then gingerly unbuttoned Perri’s shirt, his fingertips slipping on the buttons because of the blood. Perri had his arms around his waist and Dave had to lift one away. He saw a small neat hole off to the left of Perri’s belly button, leaking blood. “OK, he’s been shot down near his belt,” Dave said. “Between his belly button and his hip.”
“Is it a hole, or is it sliced open?”
“Hole.”
“Is it bleeding?”
“A bit.”
“This is important Dave. Is the blood pulsing out, or is it just leaking out?”
“Uh, leaking I think. Not really pulsing,” he said. “It’s not really bleeding that much.”
“Is it bright red, or dark red?”
“Uh, a bit hard to see in here, dark I think,” he said. “Wait.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a torch. Shining it on the wound he saw dark red blood leaking slowly out. “Dark. Is that good or bad?”
“Neither,” the man said. “Can you check his back for me, see if there is a bullet wound there too?”
“OK,” Dave checked Perri’s back, rolled him over a little, peeled off one arm of his jacket and lifted his shirt. He winced. “Yeah. There’s another hole, a bigger one, in his side near his hip.” It looked like the bullet had expanded on its way through and the hole at the back looked like something that had been made with an ice pick. From the inside.
“Is he still breathing? Is he still conscious?”
“Perri? How you doing buddy?”
“Still… here,” Perri said.
“Yeah, he is.”
“OK, keep an eye on him, tell me if anything changes in his breathing or if he loses consciousness. You are going to put a pressure bandage around his stomach to get some pressure on those wounds, but not too much. Do you know how to do that? Do you have a wound dressing, or something you can use as a bandage?”
“I guess,” Dave said. “I’ve got some clothes here.”
The paramedic talked him through it as he tore up a shirt, wadded part of it into a pad to put over the bullet hole and then bound it in place by tying the strips of shirt into a bandage and winding them around Perri’s waist. As he did it, the paramedic had him check on Perri constantly and give him a better description of where the wounds were. When he was finished, he asked again, “Perri, how you doing man?”
“Been shot Dave,” the boy replied with his jaw clenched, eyes closed.
“He’s still with us,” Dave told the paramedic.
“Right. You can’t do any more right now. You need to get him to a hospital. He may have been shot in the intestines, or he may have been lucky and the bullet has just passed through his dorsal hip muscles, I can’t say.”
“I can’t just ‘get him to a hospital’!” Dave said. “Dude, I am hiding in a water tank in the middle of a bombed out city surrounded by freaking Russian stormtroopers!”
There was a pause at the other end. “Dave, I understand. I need you to calm down and listen,” the paramedic said.
Dave took a deep breath. “Ok, ok, I’m listening, but this is no normal hunting accident, you got that?”
“I understand. Your friend is losing blood. He might have internal bleeding too. He might stabilize, or he could go into shock and die. Even if he stabilizes, he will almost certainly have infection, and that can kill him too. If you can’t get him out, you need to bring medical help to him, urgently. Is there a doctor you can go to for help?”
“You don’t understand! The whole town is being held prisoner!” Dave said. “If there is a doctor, he’s Russian. Sarge are you there? Sarge what are we going to do?!”
The paramedic started to talk again, but Sarge broke in over the top of him.
“Dave, you have no choice,” the Mountie said. “You have to go to the Russians and ask them for help.”
“You are kidding me! We blew up their ammo dump in Gambell, we just shot one of their guys.”
“They probably don’t know that. You find them, you tell them you were hiding out in those ruins and you were scared and you shot Perri by mistake.”
“And I’ll be a prisoner, and he’ll be dead.”
“Or they’ll help. There’s a chance. It’s his only chance.”
“Damn Sarge,” Dave whined.
“Go…blubber brain,” Perri said, listening to them.
Dave looked down at him, he was still lying curled up, eyes closed, breathing slowly. “You’re the one got shot, blubber brain,” Dave said. But Perri was breathing more raggedly now, almost panting in short shallow gasps. “OK, ok. I’ll go.” He logged off the radio, took off his own jacket, then worked Perri’s arms into it and pulled it tight around him, zipping it up. With a grimace he pulled Perri’s bloodstained jacket on, then put his rifle over his shoulder and patted Perri on the back. “Hang in buddy.”
“Water…” Perri said.
“I can’t man, sorry,” Dave said, moving the water bottle out of reach. “Doctor’s orders.” Then he put a foot on the ladder and began to climb.
Private Zubkhov watched as the hatch at the top of the water tank opened. He had heard what sounded like a radio conversation within the tank, but was too far away to hear what the American was saying. After the exchange of fire he’d crawled away from the tank and hidden himself in a destroyed building about fifty feet away.
That goddamned radio!
It was the second time the American had shot him. This time the slug had buried itself in his upper thigh, tearing through his leg muscle, but luckily missing his artery. He’d scrambled for cover, dragging himself into the ruins on his one good leg before he collapsed. Inside the ruin he’d tied a tourniquet around his leg to stop the bleeding, and checked his ammunition. He had his rifle, five clips, but couldn’t hold it to aim it for a damn. His sidearm and three clips. Not that he could do much with a sidearm from this far away, shooting with his wrong hand.
So he watched helplessly as the American climbed out of the water tank and started shinnying down the side, looking around him as he did. Smart guy. Sneaky guy. It had all gone sideways quickly but all he could remember was the guy coming up out of the hatch in the tank and then opening fire on him. He’d returned fire, but had had no idea where to aim and had been shooting with his bad hand so his aim had been wild.
As Zubkhov watched him, the only satisfaction he got was the sight of the blood on the man’s shirt. So, he’d wounded the bastard. Not that he looked like it bothered him. The man reached the platform on which the water tank was mounted, threw his rifle down and then jumped down, without any apparent difficulty. Zubkhov lifted up his sidearm and sighted on the man as he picked up his rifle. “Bang bang, you’re dead,” Zubkhov said quietly, as the man straightened up, looked around again, and then jogged off toward Savoonga township. Without the radio.
He lowered his Makarov. For the second time, Zubkhov watched as the American soldier escaped. The guy was a freaking Baba Yaga, some kind of unkillable spirit monster.
Yeah? Well, Zubkhov was still alive too. And in what was left of the decreasingly rational part of the mind of Private Zubkhov of 14th Special Purpose Brigade, 282nd Squadron, he was still operational and his mission objective was in reach.