John Dalmas - Soldiers

Meanwhile Esau posted himself out of the way, just inside the ramp, watching till it was nearly full. When the last of the wounded was being brought up the ramp, the doctor in charge again insisted to Esau that he lie down. Instead he got off.

Because Ensign Hawkins hadn't been brought aboard.

He then went to the other medivac. It was loading the dead while waiting for additional wounded. No, he was told, they'd seen no Ensign Hawkins.

"Well, you got to go get him. I know where he is. I'll take you. Not over there." He gestured toward the chaos of the fire base three hundred yards west. "Over there, in our drop zone. He broke his leg."

"How do you know that?"

"He radioed and told us. And turned his hat over to me."

"You people have casualty signals, right?"

"Maybe his didn't work."

This Terran major too was getting exasperated. He needed to finish loading and get his wounded to the hospital. But at the same time… "All right." Turning he called. "Corporal Chou, go with the sergeant here and pick up an Ensign Hawkins. The sergeant will show you where. And make it quick!"

Esau could have ridden on the AG sled, but he walked instead, leading off. He wasn't wobbling now. Not striding, but trudging purposefully. Having something to do had given him new strength. He didn't know exactly where the ensign was, but he'd be somewhere in the drop zone. Ensign Hawkins, he thought, if you'll help me to find you, I'll surely appreciate it. Then he repeated his appeal, this time to God.

Three hundred yards north of the drop zone, the thunder of howitzers had stopped. With the guns themselves under serious attack, the base commander had ordered them to cease fire and evacuate. But the evacuation wasn't happening. These howitzers were not only of lighter caliber, they were less heavily armored than those the wolf packs had savaged, and Demolitions was having their way with them. The initial spacing made orderly evacuation awkward, and the first howitzers destroyed were on the edges, where they were most in the way.

Esau paid all that no heed. He was busy. He spotted Hawkins from thirty yards away, lying in thigh-deep grass. The medic couldn't imagine how he saw him. The ensign's casualty signal was indeed not working. With the pant leg cut away, his wound was obvious, but more serious, he was in shock, and unconscious. With Esau's help the medic loaded Hawkins onto the AG sled and piloted it to the medivac.

They were the last loaded, and the medivac took off hastily. Esau gave up his damaged helmet and allowed himself to be treated, then lay down willingly, and quickly slept.

He had no idea-none of them did-of what was about to happen at the fire base.

The Hospital

Casualties from the Fire Base Raid were only a small part of those received by the hospital over a forty-eight-hour span. The less seriously wounded were sedated, put in hastily set-up squad tents without floors, then largely ignored.

It was morning when Esau awoke, with a bad headache, and found himself on a folding cot with mattress. A mosquito bar was draped over it. Getting up he went outside, barefoot and in a hospital nightshirt, to find and use the latrine. He'd just settled down when another B Company trooper sat down next to him, a sergeant named Ferris, from 3rd Platoon. He had an arm in a sling.

"Morning, Esau," Ferris said. "What happened to your head? Jael hit you with a skillet?"

Esau might have scowled, but didn't. "Jael's in the bot shop," he said. "From the Pecan Orchard Raid. The Wyzhnyny killed her body; she took a blaster pulse in the guts."

"Oh… Gentle Jesus, Esau, I'm surely sorry. I shouldn't have said that. War's no good place for jokes I guess. I was just wondering about your head being all bandaged up."

Esau nodded. Carefully. "The doctor says I took a fragment through my helmet, and it cut a groove across my skull. And scalps bleed pretty good; it looked worse than it was. I'll be back with the platoon in a day or two, if there's any of it left. We jumped the Wyzhnyny fire base that was shelling headquarters base. I don't know how it finally worked out."

Before they left the latrine, Ferris told Esau there wasn't a whole lot left of the rest of B Company. They'd been in the breastworks, fighting all of yesterday and the night before, and even before that. The good part was, most of the casualties were wounded or bot cases. A lot of the fighting had been with grenades and mortars. People got hit with fragments, or lost arms or legs or hands. Or got burned; the Wyzhnyny'd used flamethrowers.

Then in early evening, the Wyz had pulled back. Division figured that meant a heavy Wyzhnyny barrage, so Colonel Leclerc pulled 2nd Regiment back, too. Then, with dusk thickening, the shells started roaring in. Sounded terrible, even from a ways off, and chewed up the forest pretty badly, but didn't really harm the abatises that much. Even most of the breastworks more or less survived.

The shelling stopped just when it had started creeping westward. The rumor was a bunch of Indi tanks had hit the artillery base and shot it up pretty bad. Leclerc had sent 2nd Regiment back in, but the Wyz didn't come back. "What happened to me is," Ferris added wryly, "a broken limb fell out of a shot-up tree. Broke my collarbone. Heh heh heh. A tree taking revenge! I guess trees don't distinguish people from Wyzhnyny."

Esau nodded without smiling. It seemed like in war, there were all sorts of ways to get hurt or killed.

He wiped his butt and left. He felt hungry, a sign, he guessed, that he was getting back toward normal. When he got back to the tent, a clean uniform lay folded on the cot. He put it on; it didn't fit too badly.

At noon, the mess line buzzed with stories and rumors. A guy from Dreiser's Platoon, Mellon, was there with a bandaged face. He'd lost an ear to a grenade fragment, and another had gashed his cheek and jaw to the bone. Best he could do was mumble; Esau had to concentrate to understand him. Mellon had gotten out later than he had, when two more medivacs arrived at the fire base. One left loaded. The other left only partly loaded; it had gotten too dangerous to stay. A lot of Wyzhnyny reds had arrived in APCs-a battalion, he'd heard-and attacked what was left of Airborne A and the demolitions company. Then a dozen Indi tanks had arrived and pounded the Wyzhnyny. Right after that, an Indi air squadron had swooped in and shot them up some more, but by then, Airborne A and Demolitions were pretty much used up. When the medivacs went back again for casualties, about all they found were dead.

But the Artillery Base Raid wasn't the major topic. Mostly Esau heard about the fighting in the forest. That's where most of the casualties came from. It sounded pretty bad.

After lunch, Esau went back to his tent and lay down, but before he could get to sleep, a doctor came in, looking worn out. He told Esau he'd have to stay a few more days. Esau was glad to hear it. He felt used up.

Esau told him about Jael. The doctor gave him a note, saying he could go to the "Cyborg Processing Center" to see his wife, if she was allowed to have visitors. So after the doctor left, Esau did too.

He had no idea what to expect. The bot shop turned out to be somewhat like the hospital but smaller-a long low prefab building with several similar buildings attached along the sides like hover-fly wings. It was as clean as you could hope for; smelled like turpentine. Terrans in white coats moved through the halls, and went in and out of rooms.

He was directed to a desk, where he showed his note to a woman and said he'd like to visit his wife, Jael Wesley. Another woman, taller than he was, took him down a hall to one of the wings, to a room, and went inside with him.

On a cart was a sort of cylinder, maybe two and a half feet long, and eight inches across except at one end where it was bigger. There were wires and tubes and dials, with a couple of boxes attached. His heart sank.