Masters at Arms - By Kallypso Masters Page 0,51
stay numb most of the time. Since the scene with Gino over Melissa, he’d never been one to show much emotion, so it hadn’t been hard to do. He wouldn’t even try to process the loss of Miller’s life for a while.
Focus on the living.
Marc checked Orlando for other wounds, but didn’t find any visible ones, not that this one wasn’t serious enough.
“How bad, Doc?” Orlando spoke through gritted teeth, his lips whitened by the effort not to scream. Despite the kid’s bravado, he looked scared shitless. The young man was about to get a lesson in maturity no one should have to learn. If it didn’t kill him first.
Marc tried to remain calm, even though his heart beat so fast he was sure Orlando could hear it. He doubted the surgeons would be able to reattach the foot, but as his corpsman, he’d do his damnedest to keep him alive until they could take over. If Orlando was lucky, the amputation site would be low enough not to cause too many problems later on.
“Your foot’s pretty banged up. I’m going to hook you up to an IV and we’ll have you medevacked out of here in no time.”
“Will I lose it?” he whispered, as if afraid to put the idea out there too loud for the universe to act on.
“The surgeons will do all they can.” He needed to get Orlando’s focus on something more positive. “You’ll probably be going home soon.”
Orlando tensed in pain, gripping Grant’s hand even tighter, and then his body slumped against the roof, his head lolling to the side. The kid’s body began to shake. Shock. Marc inserted the IV needle and adjusted the drip then heard the scream of an incoming mortar round.
Instinctively, he shielded Orlando’s chest and head with his own body, spreading his arms out to cover as much of his wounded buddy as he could. The blast hit the wall beside him, taking out a portion of the cement structure. Marc felt chunks of cement slam into his back and side, stinging the skin where he didn’t have protection from the SAPI plate.
Fucking sitting ducks.
Marc shouted, “Let’s get him off the roof!”
“Sure thing, Doc!”
“Staging area’s across the street. I’ll send up a 9 Line request.” Marc knew it could take up to ten minutes for the medevac chopper to arrive. “Then we’ll come back for Miller.”
As Marc made the call, he gasped for air. What the hell? He watched the two grunts load Orlando onto a litter, pick it up, and start for the stairs. Marc rose to his feet to follow, but felt a crushing weight against his side and chest. He tried to catch his breath, but couldn’t fill his lungs with air.
He managed to fight the pain and take a few steps before his vision blurred. The pain in his side was so fucking sharp, it inhibited his ability to breath. Gasping for air, he watched the rooftop stairway swim before his eyes. He pitched forward into blackness.
* * *
Adam wondered why his last tour had to be so fucked up. If he could get his units out of Fallujah without major casualties, it would be a miracle. He hoped the RPG he’d heard explode hadn’t resulted in serious injuries, but knew Doc would take care of his troops. He always did.
While the Coalition Forces still seemed to have the upper hand, Adam knew there were many more bloody days ahead before they’d be able to claim the Sunni stronghold. He just wanted to finish up this deployment and get everyone home in one piece. He was getting too old for this shit. He’d retire as soon as he got stateside again.
The scream of a mortar round brought him back to full alert. The blast looked like it had hit the rooftop where his recon team was. Fuck. He needed to get up there. He turned over operations here and had managed to get across the street, hunkered down in the stairwell, when he looked up and saw Wilson and Grant rushing down the stairs bearing a litter.
Adam stood and provided cover for them. Damn. Who’d gotten hit? He and the remaining troops inside the staging building continued to pepper the area with gunfire as Adam followed the grunts with the litter back across the street. Once inside, he looked down at the unconscious Orlando.
“Doc radioed for the 9 Line Medevac, sir,” Grant reported.
Good. He needed to get the kid out of here. Adam looked through the