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Minutes in the wet dark passed, or perhaps just seconds. Hours? The only thing that mattered to Valentine were breaths, air into Styachowski's flooded lungs. Whatever time it took to run and get blankets had passed; the soldier returned with an armload.
Her eyes fluttered and opened. She coughed and heaved. Valentine rolled her on her side, and a mass of water and vomit came up. He held Styachowski through a series of wracking coughs, pulling blankets around her.
"Styachowski?" Valentine said as the coughing ebbed. Behind him the bulldozer was pushing the mountain of sandbags back into place. Valentine heard a beam snap and winced- he hoped that wasn't one of the Quickwood supports smashed.
Styachowski turned her face to see who was holding her. "God, Val-" she began. Valentine pressed his lips to hers, shutting her up. Xray-Tango turned away, perhaps embarrassed, and began to shout orders to the men helping the bulldozer. Valentine released her from the kiss.
"Dreams," Styachowski said.
"What's that?"
"Dreams," she said, and gathered herself. She burped, and glanced up at Valentine apologetically. "The wall fell on me, and I had dreams, or something. It was warm and pleasant, like I was being held by my momer as a baby. Then I woke up and you were there. Except my legs hurt."
A medic knelt at her feet. He ran his hands up her right leg, gently rolling it. He repeated with the left, and Styachowski cried out.
"There's a break. I don't think it's bad. Simple fracture; I don't feel any protrusions. We've got to get her on a stretcher."
"Hsssssssssssl" Styachowski sucked in air, closing her eyes. "It's throbbing. Am I bleeding?"
The medic splinted her. "It's the fibula, I think. Her knee's tore up, too. Abrasions."
"No, you're wet, you're not bleeding," Valentine said after looking at her legs. "Not badly. Bring the stretcher here."
The medic finished fixing the splint. Valentine took her shoulders and the medic her legs, and lifted her onto the stretcher.
"The infirmary at headquarters," the medic said to the men who took up the handles. "There's no hurry. Don't jog her."
"You can go too, Le Sain," Xray-Tango said, appearing at his shoulder. "Your captain there has things in hand."
"The breach?"
"God knows."
"Then I'll stay."
* * * *
Like a close-fought battle, or a football match where the lead changes hands, the issue hung in doubt until the next morning, when once again the water stabilized. Then it fell, at a pace that could almost be measured with the naked eye.
"I wonder if something gave way farther down the river?" Post said, eating bread and cheese with dirty fingers as they sat together on a ready pile of sandbags.
"Some old Corps of Engineers dike," Valentine said. "Or Pine Bluff landing is underwater now." He was too tired to care about the whys; all that mattered were me whats. And the big what was that the water was going down.
The men were asleep in the mud all around, heads cushioned on sandbags or backpacks. The scattered groups of prisoners slept in huddles, like wallows full of pigs.
"You going to check on Styachowski, sir?"
"We should see about reorganizing the men. Work out some shifts. Wish we'd get some fresh bodies from the other side of the river."
Post stretched his arms and yawned. "They have problems of their own. The River Rats are flooded out."
"River Rats? I've heard that before, somewhere."
"The boatmen who work the barges and small craft. They've got a little town over there, from what they tell me. A couple of bars, music and girls included, a slop-house. Bona fide red-light district, sounds like. Some of the other soldiers go across for a good time, or to do a little black-market trading. They smuggle, too, of course."
"The soldiers or the River Rats?"
"Both, I suppose."
