Greg Iles - Black Cross

Between bouts of laughter, Sergeant McShane explained to Stern and McConnell what the Frenchmen were doing wrong. His laughter died when, after a particularly violent explosion, one of the young commandos lost his footing and slipped down through the spiderweb of toggle ropes, somehow catching his throat in the tangle. His body jerked taut like that of a man being hanged — then his head snapped up and he plunged into the river.

Only the observers on the bank realized what had happened, and of them only McShane and the other instructor knew that two men had recently lost their lives under identical circumstances. In that case an explosion had shaken two men off the bridge. The flooded stream quickly swept them past all chance of aid, and their drowned bodies were later recovered at the mouth of Loch Lochy. A grappling net had since been suspended from the iron footbridge downstream, but Sergeant McShane was taking no chances. By the time the Frenchman’s absence had been noticed by his comrades, the Highlander had already dived into the flooded river and begun swimming after the floating body.

McShane swam strongly and, urged on by the shouts of the men on the bridge, managed to overtake the Frenchman in time. The commandos on the bridge fought their way over the toggle ropes while McShane dragged their fallen comrade up the far bank.

Even from where McConnell and Stern stood, it was plain that the young commando was badly hurt. Sergeant McShane had all he could do to keep the man’s friends far enough back to let him breathe. It was the Highlander’s cry for a medical officer that broke the spell on the near bank. McConnell splashed into the shallows, then dived into the rushing water and fought his way across. Stern raced up the bank and scampered across the toggle bridge.

When McConnell broke through the circle of men on the far bank, he saw a young man gasping like a landed fish, but getting no air into his lungs. The commando’s lips were already turning a deathly gray.

Cyanosis, he thought. Not much time.

The French commandos shouted wildly in their own language that someone should pump the water from their comrade’s lungs. The young man’s eyes bulged with terror as he tried vainly to suck air into his chest. McConnell elbowed two commandos aside, saying sharply, “ Je suis un medecin! Le Docteur !” This parted the clamoring mass of Frenchmen. He knelt beside Sergeant McShane and palpated the Frenchman’s throat. The larynx had been fractured.

“I need a penknife,” he said. “ J’ai besoin d’un couteau !”

“What are you doing?” McShane asked. “The man’s got water in his lungs!”

“No, he doesn’t. He just can’t breathe. Un Couteau !”

“We’ve got to lay him on his stomach!” McShane insisted. “Push the water out. Help me turn him.”

McConnell knocked the sergeant’s arm aside, then grabbed the young Frenchman’s hand and held it to McShane’s face. “Look at his nails, Sergeant! He’s suffocating!”

While McShane stared transfixed at the blue skin beneath the nails, someone thrust a small Swiss-made pocketknife into McConnell’s hand. He flicked open its two blades and chose the smaller for its sharpness. The young Frenchman’s face was turning bluer by the second. Using his left index finger, McConnell probed carefully for his primary landmark — the cricothyroid membrane at the center of the Adam’s apple — then brought the point of the knife blade in contact with the skin.

“Dinna try that!” Sergeant McShane said. “He’ll choke on his own blood! I’ve seen it happen in the field. If his throat’s crushed, we’ve got to get him to a hospital!”

“He’s dying!” McConnell snapped. “Hold him down!” He raised the knife, blade turned horizontally so as to pass cleanly between the cricoid and thyroid cartilages. “ Hold him, Sergeant !”

Stunned by the American’s sudden assumption of authority, McShane restrained the Frenchman with his left forearm, but grabbed McConnell’s arm with his right. “Wait, damn you!”

“I’m a doctor!” McConnell shouted, turning on the big Scotsman. Then he shouted in French, “ Mets-le deahors ! Get this man away!”

A dozen hands jerked the astonished Highlander clear. Three French commandos took his place and pinned their young friend’s head and body to the cold ground. With one clean stroke McConnell punched the knifepoint through skin and membrane.

The Frenchman’s chest heaved.

“Mon Dieu!” gasped a dozen commandos in unison.

“I need something hollow!” McConnell told them. “ J’ai . . . shit! J’ai besoin de quelque chose de creux . A reed, a straw, a pen . . . un stilo ? Anything, quickly!”

As blood trickled from the small incision, he rotated the knife blade caudally to widen it. Then he slid his right index finger down the side of the blade and into the hole, drew out the blade, and left his finger in place to preserve the integrity of his incision. He was about to shout again when Jonas Stern knelt beside him and slapped a dismantled pen into his hand.

“The toggle-bridge instructor was using it to mark his charts!”

Stern had already snapped off the end of the pen’s barrel, creating a hollow tube. McConnell took the fat end and slowly fed it down the inside of his finger and into the incision, exactly as he had slid his finger down the knife blade. The moment the barrel entered the trachea, the young Frenchman’s chest heaved again, then slowly began to fill with air.

“Regardez!” shouted a soldier.

McConnell ordered two commandos to hold their man’s legs higher than his head while he squatted beside the man’s neck and held the tube in place. In less than a minute the Frenchman’s face lightened a shade. In three minutes he had regained some pink and his pulse was strong.

“How is he, then?”

Sergeant McShane had squatted just behind McConnell.

“His larynx is in bad shape, but he’s stable. He needs a good surgeon now.”

“There’s an ambulance on the way from Fort William. Should be here in a few minutes.”

“Good.”

A French medic appeared and knelt beside the patient. He nodded in silent admiration of McConnell’s work, then began taping the pen barrel to the skin so that it would remain in place during transport. Mark stood up and shook out his hands. Only now did he realize they were quivering.

“Been a while since I’ve done anything like that,” he said. “Nothing but lab work for the last five years.”

Sergeant McShane’s voice carried open respect. “That wasna a bad show, Mr. Wilkes. Bloody good.”

McConnell extended his right hand. “It’s McConnell, Sergeant. Doctor Mark McConnell.”

“I’m pleased to know you, Doctor,” McShane said, firmly shaking it. “I thought you were some kind of chemist, man.”

McConnell smiled. “You were right about not trying a tracheotomy. It’s a dangerous procedure, even for a surgeon in a hospital. I performed a cricothyroidotomy. Almost no danger of nicking an artery that way.”

“Whatever you did, it was the right thing.” The sergeant’s blue eyes held McConnell’s. “Doing the right thing at the right time . . . that’s a talent.”

McConnell shrugged off the compliment. “Where did Stern get off to?”

“You mean Butler?”

“Uh . . . right.”

“Right here,” said Stern, rising from the crowd of Frenchmen.

“Thanks for that pen.”

To McConnell’s surprise, the young Jew leaned forward and offered his hand.

As McConnell shook it, Stern turned to McShane and said, “I think he might do after all, eh, Sergeant?”

McShane nodded once. “Aye. He might at that.”