[Raellus]

Pole Position races south, Grease doing his best to toe the line between expeditiousness and a smooth ride. Back in the troop compartment, Deacon’s still got one hand inside Honeybear’s abdomen, fingers pinching closed the severed artery.

“He’s gonna need blood. Someone check his dogtags,” the ersatz medic instructs firmly.

Sandy’s still on the HMG; Bird’s arm isn’t working properly; Sarge has a blood-soaked drive-on rag pressed to the bridge of his nose, blocking the lower two-thirds of his view. Unwounded, P.R. stoops to comply. Walker cuts him off.

“Stop. Get Sgt… ‘Topper’ on the horn,” Walker orders. “I’ll check his tags,”

The C/O squats down next to the supine Honeybear, fumbles with the chain around his neck. “O negative,”

P.R. raises Topper on the radio, passes Walker the handset. She’s too angry to waste time on protocol.

“That ‘supply convoy’ we just stopped? You didn’t tell us it’d be escorted by a BTR and a fucking platoon!”

“Er… wait one, Diamond actual.”

“No. We’re headed back to the ville. Half my people are wounded, one critically. We did our job. That convoy’s not going anywhere. The rest is up to you. Diamond Six, OUT.”

She thrusts the handset back to P.R., making it plain that she’s done communicating with the partisan XO. Taking it back, P.R. sheepishly reports, “I’m O negative,”

“Fox Two to Diamond Six. Over? Fox Two to Diamond Six, pick up. Over?”

Grease is clear-headed enough to remember the detour around the AT mine buried in the dirt road to Ruda; he slows Pole Position to a crawl, maneuvers through a narrow lane cleared through the trees. Safely back on the road, the driver accelerates again- carefully measured, though, so as to avoid jostling the critically-wounded patient lying unconscious in the back.

…

Honeybear lies on a table in the village’s makeshift infirmary. Deacon’s hand is still inside the machine gunner’s torso. The chaplain assistant’s medic bag is spread open next to the patient. The machine gunner hasn’t regained consciousness; Deacon has P.R. standing by with the chloroform, in case he does.

“Somebody’s gonna have to pinch the artery shut while I tie it off,” Deacon says, unable to mask the trepidation in his voice.

“I’ll do it,” Walker volunteers. Like any good commanding officer, she feels responsible for the consequences of her orders.

“See those scissor-looking things?” Deacon asks. “No, the other ones. Yeah, that’s a clamp. You’re gonna clamp down right by where I’m pinching here. See? Yeah, right there. Good. Okay, hold that nice and steady,”

Deacon cuts a length of cat gut, fashions a loop. Using one hand to spread the fat and muscle bordering the wound, the team’s medic slips the loop around the exposed stub of the artery, cinches it tight, then uses both hands to tie it off, before trimming off most of the loose ends.

“Okay, good. Now slowly, open the clamp,”

Walker complies. The knot holds. Deacon closes his eyes, exhales long and slow. After he flexes his blood-smeared hands a few times, he sews up the wound.

“P.R., you’re up.”

Using a length of surgical rubber tubing and a pair of 20-gauge IV needles, Deacon rigs up a direct transfusion from the team’s RTO to the patient.

The procedures appear to have been successful, at least in the near-term. Deacon pushes through stress-induced exhaustion to treat the rest of the team’s respective wounds. Bird’s collar bone is broken (he diagnoses the injury himself, “Done it before, on the other side- fell off a horse when I was a kid,”). Deacon can’t do much more than immobilize the injured arm and fashion a sling. Fortunately, the sniper’s bullet wounds are mostly superficial. Sarge’s nose is a mess. The skin and cartilage of the upper septum are split open, literally to the bone (which is broken). Both the team Sergeant’s eyes are black, swollen to watery slits. With Sandy's help (as a boxer, she's seen plenty of broken noses), Deacon sets the bone, sews up the wound. Sarge will have an ugly scar when the wound heals.

When Deacon is finished rendering aid, nearly all of the party’s antibiotics and painkillers are used up. The Diamonds will have to beg, scrounge, plunder, or steal some more. The exhausted team medic slinks off to have a cry in private.


Ref Notes:
This write-up is based on several successful driving (Grease) and Helped medical rolls (Deacon et al).

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