Stephen Leather - The Hunting

‘Right, yes, sorry.’ He sat up. His face was bathed in sweat and his mouth was bone dry. The nurse was Amira. She had been with the hospital from the day it had opened for business, six years earlier. She was in her forties and had a no-nonsense approach. She always spoke her mind, which was unusual in a society where women were generally subjugated. ‘What’s happening, Amira?’ he asked. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t yet midday and he had dropped down onto his cot bed at nine in the morning after sixteen straight hours in the operating theatre.

‘We’ve had three casualties brought in and Dr Eloias is on his own.’

‘Where’s Ahmed? He’s on call.’

‘He’s gone out to deal with two children who were hurt in an explosion. They can’t be moved. Dr Mahdi and Dr Karam are in the surgery and there are dozens of patients waiting. There is only you, Dr Raj, I’m sorry.’

There were just seven full-time doctors at the hospital and two had been injured in a bombing three days earlier. That left only five and five was barely enough to handle the emergency cases. Up until three months ago there had been twenty doctors, but after a spate of bombings and an increase in sniper attacks, all the foreign doctors with the exception of Raj had left. He understood why. The day-to-day conditions were bad enough, but most of the doctors who had left had families and the increase in attacks meant it had simply become too dangerous for them to be there.

Raj swung his legs over the side of his cot. He hadn’t bothered to undress and was still wearing his stained T-shirt and scrubs. Amira held out a bottle of water. He grinned, took it from her, and gulped some down, then slipped on his sandals and followed her out of the cupboard-sized room that the medics used as a crash pad. They walked down the tiled corridor to what was laughably referred to as the operating theatre. It was a windowless room with an air conditioner. The room was powered by a generator, necessary because they were always being hit by power cuts. There were two operating tables and a decent lighting system, courtesy of a crowdfunding appeal organised by a group of Syrian doctors who were now working for the NHS in London. The equipment had arrived with much-needed medicine on two trucks that had driven across Europe to the Turkey–Syria border. The medicines had long gone but the lights still worked.

There was a small washing area outside the theatre and Raj quickly but efficiently washed his hands and arms. A nurse helped him on with his gown and he pulled on a mask and gloves. Eloias looked up from his patient as Raj walked in. He was a big man, his shaved head covered with a surgical hat and mask. ‘Sorry, Raj,’ he said. ‘I know you must be exhausted.’

There were two nurses assisting Eloias and a third dealing with the anaesthetic. Three more nurses were standing at the second operating table, waiting for Raj. ‘Gunshot wound,’ said Eloias, gesturing with his surgical scissors at the second table. ‘It needs handling now.’ Raj stopped and a cold hand gripped his heart as his dream flashed back to him, but then he saw that the patient was a man and he relaxed. ‘Left thigh,’ said Eloias. He was the hospital’s most experienced doctor and had been its director for the past year, ever since the previous holder of the post had given up and gone back to Turkey.

‘Fuck,’ said Raj. ‘Are you kidding me?’ There had been six thigh wounds so far that week and it was only Wednesday. The previous week most of the sniper wounds had been to the left shoulder. It was as if the snipers were having some sort of competition between themselves. It would have been just as easy to shoot their victims in the head, but the snipers wanted to leave them alive to put the hospitals under pressure. Neither side in the conflict respected the neutrality of hospitals – they were bombed and attacked as much as government buildings or rebel strongholds. Hospital staff had painted over the red crosses on their ambulances as they had clearly become targets, and doctors and nurses never went outside wearing medical outfits after several nurses had been shot leaving the hospital.

Raj went over and looked down at the thigh wound. It was bad. Someone had put a tourniquet above the wound but even so the man had clearly lost a lot of blood. Blood was always in short supply at the hospital, as were most things. The only thing they had a regular supply of was patients.

The bullet was a big one and had broken into at least four pieces that he could see. The thigh bone was shattered and several blood vessels were mangled. The nurse on his left handed him a pair of tweezers and he smiled his thanks. He dug out the fragments and placed them in a metal tray, then asked for suction to clear the blood that was pooling in the wound.

Raj flinched at the sound of gunfire. It sounded as if it was coming from inside the hospital. Automatic fire, probably a Kalashnikov. He looked over at Eloias. The older doctor looked anxious, but Raj bent back down over his patient.

Raj looked over at the door, then carried on working on the damaged blood vessels. There was a rapid footfall on the concrete outside and then the door was shouldered open. A young man, bearded with a grey skullcap, stood in the doorway holding an AK-47. For a second, Raj thought he was going to spray the room with bullets, but then he stepped aside to let another man walk in. He was white with sun-bleached hair, and was also carrying an AK-47. He had a black-and-white checked keffiyeh around his neck and had shielded his eyes with wraparound sunglasses. ‘Who’s in charge?’ he barked in Arabic, in what sounded like an English accent.

After almost a year in Syria, Raj’s Arabic was good enough to hold a conversation, but he knew that any native speaker would know he wasn’t local. He took a quick look over at Eloias who was about to speak but silenced him with a stare. ‘That’d be me,’ Raj said to the man, in English.

The man looked at him. ‘You’re English?’ he asked, taking off his sunglasses to reveal pale blue eyes. He had a sprinkling of freckles across his snub nose and old acne scars on his cheeks.

Raj nodded.

‘Where are you from, bruv?’ asked the man.

‘Maida Vale. West London.’

‘I know where Maida Vale is bruv, I’m from Kilburn, just down the road.’ He put the glasses back on. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Rajesh – Raj.’

‘All right, Raj, mate. My name’s Sid. You run the show, yeah?’

‘I’m the hospital director.’

‘But you’re a doctor, right?’

Raj held up his scalpel and tweezers. A third man appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a baggy grey shirt and pale green baggy trousers and was also holding a Kalashnikov. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘No problem, Jaffar, keep your knickers on,’ said Sid. He waved his gun at Eloias. ‘Who’s he?’ he asked.

‘He’s a local,’ said Raj. ‘A nurse. He’s getting the patient ready for me.’

‘You’re the only doctor here?’

‘We’ve one doctor out on a job and two were injured in an explosion yesterday. Why, do you have a casualty with you?’

Sid shook his head. ‘We need you at our camp. We’ve got a lot of guys hurt there.’

‘Bring them here,’ said Raj.

‘Nah, bruv, you’re one Mohammed that’s going to have to visit the mountain.’

‘My name’s Raj, not Mohammed. And I have to finish these patients first.’

The man called Jaffar stepped towards the operating table and looked down at the unconscious patient. Then in one smooth movement he raised his AK-47 and shot him three times in the chest. The man twitched and went still and blood began to pool over the table. ‘He’s finished,’ said Jaffar.

‘Jaffar, what the fuck!’ shouted Sid.