A loud explosion nearby reverberated off the metal of the plane and I pressed my hands to my ears to try and block the sound, my entire body buzzing from the blast.
“We’re gonna have to get higher!” Gus shouted again as the distinct sound of gunfire discharged nearby.
I exhaled and nodded, undoing the latch of my buckle and getting unsteadily to my feet. Holding on to the harness, I grabbed my medical bag and unzipped it, feeling around until I found the case holding my scissors. Shoving it in my pocket, I made my way toward my patient.
I could see from several feet away that Miles’s stomach was already expanding as we quickly ascended. I stumbled and fell, just missing the knee I’d injured the day before.
“You okay?”
I looked up at a soldier staring down at me from a top bunk.
“Fine,” I said, hurrying to my feet and to Miles.
“Shit shit shit,” I said, staring down at the flesh that was tearing around the stitches as the stomach ballooned. I grabbed the scissors from their case, not caring as it fell to the floor and slid out of sight. “Hang on, buddy. I’ve got you. I’m not going to let you bleed out.”
Bracing one hand against the man’s hot flesh, I began to cut as quickly and carefully as I could so as not to do further damage. As I moved down the line of crude black thread, I watched the skin pull back, exposing fatty tissue and muscle below. Grabbing the bag of supplies I’d secured to the foot of his bunk before takeoff, I pulled out a clean gauze and draped it loosely over the wound before securing it with tape. I checked his pulse and exhaled. He was still alive.
Sagging against the frame of the bunk, I glanced over at Benny.
“You doing okay, Benny?”
He stared at my cheek, my ear, my chin.
“Lila.” I saw him say the name but couldn’t hear it over the noise of the engine.
I nodded.
“Lila,” I said, and felt the plane level. With a sigh of relief, I bent down to retrieve my scissors case and then began to make my rounds to the other patients.
4
“You comin’?”
I glanced over the side of my bunk at Char, who was wearing mascara that was already leaving black smudges beneath her eyes from the humidity, and a tight-fitting red dress that clung damply to her ample breasts.
It was our day off and as usual she was itching for some action. The kind that didn’t involve dodging bullets or keeping someone from bleeding out. She’d told me once, the first time she’d donned one of her rather risqué dresses, that she could handle any wound or close call so long as she could get some male attention after to “keep the balance.” I’d never identified with a statement less. For me, the balance was survival. Both mine and my patients’. But to each her own.
“Is Mac going to be there?” I asked, watching her wipe away a bead of sweat sliding over the narrow edge of her collarbone.
If Mac was going to be wherever she was headed, I’d opt out. It never failed that the two of them always wandered off. It was fine if it was more than just she and I, but more often than not it wasn’t and I ended up getting left behind to find my own way back to base. Thankfully, we were never too far away, the nearest town less than two miles away. But walking alone was never encouraged. Day or night. Because you never knew what kind of desperation you might cross paths with.
“Nah,” Char said. “He flew out an hour ago.”
“I hope you sent him off with a smile,” a nurse called Debbie said from two bunks over.
“I always do!” Char shouted back.
I gave her a look and she had the audacity to blush.
“He wasn’t smilingthatbig,” she whispered and I laughed.
“You are an awful tease, Charlene Newcomb.”
“Actually, I’m quite good at it.”
“That poor man’s balls must be so blue they’re the color of the night sky by now.”
Her eyes went wide and she clapped a hand over her mouth. I laughed and rolled onto my back, trying to ignore the pleading face she was now giving me.
