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Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1915 16 October 1945
“I regret that you have been wounded, mi General,” the major of the Horse Rifles said, looking down at General de Brigada Bernardo Martín. “I have sent for a surgeon.”
Martín, who was lying on the taxiway ten meters from the Storch, raised himself on his elbow and looked down at his left leg. There was a lot of blood, but he saw that he had been lucky. The machine gun bullet had gone into the fleshy part of his thigh and he didn’t think it had hit either artery or bone.
“Not as much as you will later,” Martín snapped, and immediately thought, That was not smart, Bernardo. He has a gun.
And is apparently so shaken by this that he hasn’t taken mine.
Another major appeared, this one a cirujano mayor, a doctor.
“I’ll put a quick tourniquet on your leg, mi General, and then give you something for the pain.”
Good. It’s starting to throb. That will soon be followed b
y pain.
But I can’t take any morphine; I need to think.
“No morphine,” Martín ordered.
“Let’s get your trousers off,” the cirujano mayor said.
The Horse Rifles major suddenly raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender.
Martín looked toward the terminal building.
Major Habanzo and Captain Garcia of the BIS, pistols drawn, were running toward them, followed by what looked like an entire company of Patricios.
The Horse Rifles major dropped his pistol onto the taxiway.
Martín immediately thought how that could have been reported: “General Bernardo Martín died of a second wound suffered when his captor, who never should have been allowed to get near anything more lethal than a water pistol, dropped his pistol onto the taxiway, whereupon it went off.”
“You’ll be shot,” Habanzo said to the Horse Rifles major.
“Not by you,” Martín said.
“How bad is el General?” Habanzo demanded of the cirujano mayor.
“He is in no immediate danger, and we can have him at the hospital in twenty minutes,” the doctor said.
“I’m not going to the hospital,” Martín announced.
“Mi General, you’re wounded!” Captain Garcia said.
“I noticed,” Martín said. “Garcia, get a stretcher and bearers and take me to Señor Frade’s office in the terminal building.”
“And the cirujano mayor?” Habanzo asked. “What do we do with him?”
“You don’t do anything with him. But what you do now is seal off the airport. Nobody in or out.”
“Including the passengers who were going to fly to Berlin?”
“Including everybody,” Martín said.
“Mi General, you really should go to the hospital,” the cirujano mayor said.
