Man Down

by Nathan Burrows

  ‘Okay!’ she shouted, after a quick glance to make sure that Mulumbu was where Adams had told him to be. ‘1 — 2 — 3 — Lift.’ All three of them stood up as one, and started shuffling towards the helicopter.

  10

  In the captain’s seat of the Chinook, Flight Lieutenant Davies took one hand off the collective thrust and flexed his fingers a couple of times. He flicked the switch to get himself onto the comms channel with the team in the back.

  ‘How’re they doing?’ he asked.

  ‘They’ve just picked him up now,’ Kinkers replied, his lazy Australian drawl obvious even over the crackling radio. ‘Moving back towards us slowly. There’s only one on the back of the stretcher. He’s a big lad, so they’re a bit slow.’

  Davies’s attention was drawn by some movement on the right-hand side of the helicopter in his peripheral vision. The Force Protection team was reorganising itself from the normal semi-circle around the ramp of the helicopter into a loose semi-circle on the right side of the Chinook. He saw the Team Leader shouting and pointing towards a small copse about two hundred yards away from them.

  ‘Kinkers!’ he shouted down the radio to the loadmaster. ‘Get on the right-hand gun. There’s something going on by those trees.’

  ‘Roger,’ the pilot heard after a brief second. ‘I’m on it.’

  Davies flicked the comms switch back to the main channel and spoke to his co-pilot.

  ‘Taff,’ he said. ‘Get ready to lift sharpish, mate. FP are getting excited about something in the trees.’

  ‘Seen,’ Taff replied. One of the things Davies liked most about his dour Welsh co-pilot was that he was a man of few words. The pilot craned his head around over his shoulder to try to see what was going on through the Plexiglass window. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see some movement in the copse, which would explain why the FP team was getting excited. Although the trees were at least two hundred yards away, that was well within the range of any of the rifles that the insurgents were using. But that also put them all within range of the FP team, and Davies knew who he would put his money on. That didn’t change the fact that the biggest threat to the aircraft was a rocket-propelled grenade, though. Davies knew full well that other than evasive manoeuvres in the air, there wasn’t anything that he would able to do to avoid the unguided missiles. Added to that was the fact that he wasn’t in the air at the moment, but sitting on the ground with rotors turning, like a large, fat, noisy duck. The insurgents had been using rocket-propelled grenades — RPGs — for years, and there were many wrecked Russian helicopters in Afghanistan that proved how effective they could be.

  Looking over his other shoulder, the pilot could see the two remaining medics in the back, kneeling on the ramp and waiting for the stretcher with the casualty.

  ‘How far away are they, Kinkers?’ Davies said into his microphone to the loadmaster, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

  ‘About fifty yards,’ Kinkers replied. ‘I think there’s some people over in those trees, but I can’t see much. Might just be locals interested in what’s going on, I can’t tell.’

  ‘Ok mate,’ Davies said. ‘Just make sure that they can see that there’s someone on the gun. When we lift, I’m going to go hard left and nose down for a couple of hundred metres, and then sharp right and up as quick as she’ll go.’

  ‘Got it,’ Kinkers barked back. Davies flexed his fingers again, glanced across at his co-pilot, Taff, and tried not to look as anxious as he felt.

  Lizzie’s arms were burning from the weight of the stretcher as she stumbled as quickly as she could towards the back of the helicopter. They’d all seen the FP team reorganise themselves, which could only mean that there was some kind of threat over to the right-hand side of them, perhaps in the trees that she could see in the distance. They were already going as fast as they could, and as she looked across at Adams, she could see that he was struggling just as much as she was. Her rifle had originally been slung across her back when they’d picked up the stretcher, but it had since slid around and was now bouncing against her side with every step, rubbing painfully against her hip.

  Hearing Adams shout ‘Stop’, she lowered the stretcher to the ground, the ache in her arms instantly starting to fade. She pulled her goggles down over her eyes as they were just about to go straight into the hot downdraft of the two huge exhausts on the back of the Chinook, and she checked that the safety goggles were still in place on the casualty. Pushing the rifle back to where it was supposed to be across her back, she got ready for the command to lift from Adams.

  When it came, she stood up again and grimaced as the pain came back into both arms straight away. Every inch of her body was sweating, and a river of perspiration was running down her back and front. The body armour she was wearing wasn’t designed with women in mind, and she couldn’t differentiate between the pain in her chest from the body armour or the exertion. After a couple of steps, her rifle readjusted itself and swung back down to her hip, banging against the raw skin where it had been rubbing before. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she winced under her breath. There had to be an easier way of doing this.

  At last, they reached the rear ramp of the helicopter and she handed over her corner of the stretcher to Ronald, who was standing a few yards from the helicopter. He must have seen how much she’d been struggling. She was relieved to give him the stretcher but irritated with herself at the fact that he’d obviously seen that she needed help. Lizzie stepped onto the ramp and followed the others to the front of the helicopter where Colonel Nick was kneeling next to the medical kit, his stethoscope draped around his neck. That’ll be in case anyone doesn’t realise that he’s a doctor, she thought. She sat in one of the canvas seats to the side of the casualty and reached into an ice box which had some water in it, grabbing a bottle for herself and throwing one at Adams who had sat down on the other side. He looked at her, mouthing ‘thank you’, and then they both turned to watch as the FP team started streaming back onto the helicopter.

  The second the last man scrambled onto the back of the helicopter, Lizzie saw the loadmaster shouting frantically into his headset. Above her head, she heard the pitch of the massive motors changing and the body of the Chinook shook from side to side as the rotors clawed at the air. With a lurch, the enormous helicopter leapt into the air as Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief. Within a few minutes, they would be high up in the blue sky, well beyond the reach of anything the insurgents on the ground could throw at them. All they had to do now was get there.

  11

  Colonel Nick grabbed the seat next to him as the aircraft lifted and banked hard over to one side. Around him, he saw the soldiers in the FP team grabbing what they could to hold on to, a couple of them exchanging nervous grins.

  For fuck’s sake, Colonel Nick thought. What was the bloody pilot trying to do? He was going to have a word when they got back, if they got back at all the way the idiot in the front was flying. As the aircraft levelled out and started climbing hard, the doctor turned his attention to the casualty on the stretcher in front of him. The soldier was, Colonel Nick thought, in a bit of a mess.

  Ronald had already put the oxygen mask on the casualty’s face, and Colonel Nick could see from the mist inside the plastic mask that he was breathing okay. The small monitor on the floor hadn’t yet picked up the oxygen saturation from the probe on the casualty’s finger, but he was still a nice pink colour. Colonel Nick reached down and found the soldier’s metal dog tags, reading the surname imprinted on them.

  ‘Perry? Corporal Perry?’ Colonel Nick shouted over the noise of the rotor blades. ‘Can you hear me?’ There was no response from the casualty, and Colonel Nick couldn’t really do much more until Perry’s chest was exposed. Ronald was busy unclipping Perry’s combat vest so that he could get to the body armour underneath, and Adams was making short work of the lad’s uniform with a large pair of toughened scissors. Colonel Nick had overheard some banter between Adams and Lizzie about the scissors ea
rlier, something to do with them being ‘special’. It was only now that he realised that Adams was left-handed, and so wouldn’t be able to use the scissors he’d been issued with.

  Colonel Nick looked up at Lizzie, who was busy preparing an intravenous line ready for when someone had managed to get a cannula in. Her face was bright red and didn’t look happy at all. Adams had got a cannulation kit ready next to him, so no doubt he was going to do the honours as soon as he’d finished with his special scissors. Both Lizzie and Adams were dripping with perspiration. Colonel Nick looked down the helicopter at the FP team, several of whom looked away from him as their eyes met. Colonel Nick didn’t think it was a rank thing. They were all soldiers, but the FP team’s job was to kill people and his was to save lives.

  As he looked back down at the casualty, he could see the other members of the medical team were all hard at work. Adams had shoved his scissors back behind his rank tabs on the front of his uniform and was putting an elastic tourniquet around Perry’s upper arm, ready to put a cannula in. Lizzie was kneeling next to him, still looking hot and uncomfortable.

  Ronald had finally managed to get access to Perry’s chest, ripping the Velcro of the body armour apart and undoing the front of his combats. Finally, Colonel Nick thought, he could get to work. He looked at Perry’s neck first, running his hands over it to feel for any distended neck veins or a non-central trachea. This was supposed to be part of the standard drills anyway, but after missing it off on the last job with the tension pneumothorax, he wanted to be especially careful.

  Finding nothing untoward, he continued to run his hands over Perry’s chest, making sure to get them as far around towards his back as he could, checking for blood as he went. There were no obvious injuries, the chest had equal air entry on both sides. Colonel Nick remembered the looks he got from the team on the previous job when he’d used his stethoscope in flight, so he didn’t bother this time. They were right anyway, although none of them had said a word. He hadn’t been able to hear a thing over the noise in the back of the helicopter. He didn’t bother percussing the chest for the same reason.

  Moving his hands down to Perry’s abdomen, he noted with satisfaction that it was soft, so nothing nasty going on there. He put his palms on Perry’s hip bones and pressed down sharply, noting with satisfaction that the pelvis seemed to be intact. So far, so good, he thought.

  By this time Perry was almost naked on the stretcher. Ronald had finished cutting off the clothing that he’d been able to get to, leaving Perry lying on a bed of his own ruined uniform. Colonel Nick turned his attention to Perry’s legs. The damage to the left leg was obvious. The entire lower limb was missing, with the stump raw and ragged, and he could see the casualty’s patella hanging on by a thread of skin. The tourniquet wrapped above where the knee had been was doing its job and stopping any major haemorrhage. Looking at the right leg, the femur was obviously broken. Colonel Nick turned to Ronald.

  ‘We need a Kendrick splint, McDonald!’ he shouted in Ronald’s ear. ‘Femur’s gone.’

  Looking surprised, Ronald pointed at the already prepared splint that was lying next to the stretcher. He picked it up and started to manoeuvre the various straps and splints into place so that it could it be put on to straighten the broken limb. As he tentatively moved Perry’s badly deformed leg, Colonel Nick kept a close eye on the casualty’s face. If there was any sign of pain then he would stop and give the man some morphine, but there was no response at all. Not a good sign. Unless a person with such a badly fractured femur was deeply unconscious, the slightest movement of the broken leg would be agonising.

  Corporal Emma Wardle cupped her hands around the mug of tea as if her hands were cold. She was far from cold though. Quite the opposite, in fact. She was only doing so in case her hands started shaking again.

  She was sitting on a chair at the main desk in the Emergency Room with a couple of the other staff, waiting for the next casualty to arrive. She’d heard along the grapevine that this was a bad one — an amputated leg, they’d heard. Although if it turned out to be completely different, it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. She just wished that she wasn’t so bloody nervous.

  Emma thought back to when she first started out as a student nurse, almost four years ago. Her parents had been thrilled when she’d originally said that she wanted to become a nurse.

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ her dad had said at the time. ‘You’ll make a fantastic nurse,’ he’d said, and her mum had agreed. She made a mental note to write to her at some point over the next few days to see how she was getting on without him. Even though he’d been dead for two years now, Emma always felt sad when she thought about how he would have liked to have seen her graduate from the university. She still spoke to him sometimes like he was still alive. At least the dreams she had where he was still alive were getting less and less as time went on, as was the pain that she felt when she woke after one of them and he died all over again.

  The familiar noise of the rotor blades of a Chinook brought her back to reality. Shaking her head to clear away the memories, she put her tea down on the desk and walked across to the trauma bay, checking that her blonde hair was still tucked up into a bun as she did so. Around her, the other members of the team all began to move to their positions. The whole thing was theatre, she thought, and not for the first time. Everyone had a part to play, a scene to be in, and a character to act out. This was a first night for her though — the first time that she was centre stage and doing something as opposed to watching from the wings. While she waited for the casualty to arrive, she checked the drawer of equipment again, although she’d checked it at least three times already.

  A moment later, Emma heard the Chinook’s engines winding down, which meant it had landed and the casualty was about to be unloaded. Knowing she only had a few minutes to go before the ambulance arrived, she took a few deep breaths.

  Emma looked around the Emergency Room. She could see Squadron Leader Webb over by the main desk where her tea still sat. Major Rob Clarke was standing next to him, looking as miserable as usual. When he saw her looking at him, his face lightened and he smiled, so she gave him a brief smile in return, hoping that she didn’t look too nervous. Over by the desk with the trauma chart, one of the Combat Medical Technicians was chewing the pen that was attached to the chart holder with a piece of string. Emma could almost taste the tension in the room.

  Adams snagged his fingernail on the handle of the ambulance door as he tried to open it when the ambulance pulled up outside the hospital. Ignoring the pain, he waited until the driver opened the door from the outside. As the casualty was being pulled out of the ambulance, Adams saw the Colonel getting his kit together. At least he had his helmet with him this time. He knew that Lizzie and Ronald would be sorting out the helicopter while Perry was being processed and that any kit that they’d left behind would be swept up by them, but it was still good to see that the Colonel had at least learned from his earlier mistake. Adams followed the group with the stretcher towards the doors of the Emergency Room and stopped outside the door to unload his rifle. He waited for Colonel Nick to catch up with him.

  ‘If you want to go in and do the handover, sir,’ Adams said, ‘I’ll mind the weapons. Just come back out after so that we can clear them.’ Colonel Nick handed over his rifle to Adams and followed the stretcher into the Emergency Room without a word. Adams undid the clasps on the front of his combat vest and shrugged his way out of it so that he could get out of his body armour. I bet he won’t bring back any water, he thought. Sitting down next to his equipment, Adams dug into his pocket for a packet of cigarettes. He didn’t smoke much, but he figured that he was probably entitled to one now. As long as Lizzie didn’t catch him.

  A few minutes later, Colonel Nick came back outside.

  ‘Here you go, Adams,’ he said, surprising him by handing him a bottle of cold water. ‘Andrew Webb’s in there, conducting the orchestra.’

  ‘Cheers, sir. Nice one.�
��

  ‘Have you been smoking?’ Colonel Nick asked.

  ‘Er, yes,’ Adams replied. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What are you sorry for? I don’t care. I smoked like a chimney all through medical school. It was the only thing that got me through sometimes,’ Colonel Nick said.

  ‘Could you do me a favour though, sir?’ Adams said.

  ‘What? Don’t tell Sergeant Jarman?’ Colonel Nick looked across at Adams and laughed. ‘You’re secret’s safe with me, Adams. For the time being, at least.’ As Adams stood up and picked up the weapons, he thought that maybe the Colonel was beginning to grow on him.

  Adams unlatched the magazine from the bottom of his rifle and put it into one of the pouches on his combat vest. He pointed the weapon towards the small sand-filled bunker outside the door of the tent, drew the bolt back and secured it in place so that he could look inside the chamber to make sure that there wasn’t a round still in there. The last thing he wanted to do was have a negligent discharge inside the hospital. Colonel Nick looked over his shoulder into the chamber and said, ‘Clear.’ As Adams released the bolt and fired off the action, Colonel Nick went through the same drills so that Adams could check his weapon as well.

  ‘All set then, sir?’ Adams said as he picked up his kit. ‘Let’s go and watch the show.’

  Adams felt the cool blast of air from the air conditioning unit as he walked into the tent with relief. He noticed that Colonel Nick was as soaked through with sweat as he was. They both put their kit in neat piles in the corner of the room, and Adams went to the fridge to get them both some more water — the first bottle had barely touched the sides. He dodged the medical team who were just transferring the patient from the stretcher onto the trolley in the trauma bay and walked back to stand next to Colonel Nick.