Man Down

by Nathan Burrows

  ‘What did you just say?’ he asked Adams in a much quieter voice. Maybe Adams wasn’t that far off the mark if he thought Nick was about to hit him.

  ‘You fucked up,’ Adams replied, no longer laughing. ‘I don’t know if you’ve realised, but there’s a whole bunch of people out there who are trying their best to kill us. When we’re on the ground, we’re there for as short a time as possible. This isn’t an exercise.’

  ‘Oh, thank you for reminding me,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve realised, but I gave you an order out there, which was to wait and triage the casualties properly. I’m the senior clinical lead here. You’re only a nurse.’ Adams didn’t reply but folded his arms over his chest. ‘Maybe I will charge you after all,’ Nick continued.

  ‘You go for it, Colonel,’ Adams replied, walking past Nick and back towards the door of the observation ward. ‘I think we’re done here. You need to have a word with yourself.’

  ‘Wait!’ Nick shouted. ‘We’re not fucking done.’ Adams spun round on his heel and took a step back towards Nick. Now it was Nick who was wondering if a punch was coming his way.

  ‘You fucked up, Colonel Hickman. You triaged the walking-wounded, ignoring the bloke with his fucking brains hanging out of his head. And while you were taking your time doing that, you were putting the helicopter, all the crew, and the soldiers on the ground at risk.’

  ‘Adams, shut up and list–’

  ’So go for it,’ Adams interrupted. ‘Charge me, and let’s get all that out in the open. I’m sure the General Medical Council would have a view.’

  Nick stood, thinking hard about how to recover the situation. He needed to say something to re-establish control, but by the time he realised this, Adams had already walked out of the observation ward.

  He rolled the ampoule over and over in his pocket as he looked in through the windows to the intensive care unit. The medics on the other side of the flaps were bustling around their casualty, whose head was heavily wrapped in bandages. He recognised most of the medical team, but there were a few there who he didn’t. They must be the critical care retrieval team, there to take the casualty back to the United Kingdom.

  Pulling the ampoule out of his pocket, he looked at it closely, although the light in the corridor wasn’t very good. Even though he couldn’t see any puncture marks in the plastic, for a moment he wasn’t even sure if he’d got the right ampoule. This was the only ampoule that he’d had in his pocket though, so it must be the right one. He got a handkerchief from his other pocket and wrapped the ampoule in the material. Returning his hand to his pocket, he rolled the ampoule over and over inside the handkerchief to make sure that there wouldn’t be any fingerprints left on it. Although this was overkill — the chances of anyone even figuring out what he was doing were so remote that it was laughable — you could never be too careful.

  The last recipient of one of his ‘special’ ampoules had done very well, dying the way that he did. When he’d thought about it later, though, the next ampoule would be better used on an unconscious casualty who wasn’t going to suddenly leap up and start shouting like the previous one had. The casualty inside the intensive care unit would be absolutely perfect. He knew that this soldier wasn’t going to be waking up any time soon. Looking at the medical equipment that the retrieval team was organising, he could see that the amount of sedation the casualty was getting was virtually none. The soldier was, in a word, fucked. He knew he didn’t have much time though; this one would be on the road — or more accurately in the air — before too long. He pushed the canvas flap of the ICU tent aside and walked into the unit.

  As he stood just behind the retrieval team, who were all focused on preparing the casualty for the long journey ahead, he had a sudden thought. If he could get the ampoule into the ones that the retrieval team would be using, then it would be used at some point during the journey. He wouldn’t get to see the results, which would be a shame, but at the same time, he’d be nowhere near the casualty when the ampoule was used. That would be perfect, and well worth the risk of letting the ampoule out of his sight. He’d just checked it after all, and it was perfect. No signs of any tampering at all, and now it was nice and clean as well.

  He sidled closer to the team, eyeing the medical grab bag that was on a table next to the casualty. Peering inside, he could see a wooden pulp tray containing some ampoules that were identical to the one in his pocket, along with some syringes. He knew that this was a pre-prepared tray for administering intravenous drugs. Putting all the equipment together that was needed to flush the line after giving medication directly into the cannula was something that he’d done many times himself when moving patients. It saved messing about trying to find things in bags.

  ‘Right then, chaps. Are we all set?’ he heard the officer in charge of the retrieval team say to the others. They all looked up at him, a few of them responding. While they were paying more attention to their boss than anything else, he pulled the ampoule out of his pocket and dropped it into the wooden pulp tray inside the bag, grabbing a couple of the ampoules that were in the tray as he did so and putting them back in his pocket. That would increase the chances of his ampoule being used.

  The team started pushing the trolley towards the door of the ICU. He knew that there would be an ambulance outside to take the casualty and the team down to the landing strip where they would be loaded onto a Hercules C130 transport plane. From there they would go to Kandahar, where a huge C17 would be waiting for the long trip back to the United Kingdom. The team with the casualty would be with him all the way, and with a patient as sick as theirs was, the ampoule would certainly be used at some point. He was sure of that.

  With a start, he realised that the team hadn’t picked up the grab bag. Bollocks, he thought. It’s not theirs. Now he had to get that ampoule back again, which could be tricky. It was difficult to explain why you were rummaging around in someone else’s medical bag. But it must be theirs. He picked the bag up and followed the team who were negotiating the canvas doors of the tent. He tapped the medic closest to him on the shoulder. She turned around to face him, letting go of the trolley and stopping.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Is this yours?’

  ‘Oh shit,’ she replied before glancing down at the rank tab on his chest. ‘Nice one, sir. Christ, I’d be shot if I let the boss leave this behind.’ The medic smiled at him, showing a set of slightly crooked front teeth. He’d be thinking about that smile for a while, that was for certain. ‘Thank you. I’ll bring you back a present from the UK next time I’m over.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said, returning the smile. ‘A bottle of Jack Daniels would be good.’

  Lizzie Jarman looked up as Adams pushed his way through the flaps into the TRT tent. From the look on his face, she could tell that he wasn’t happy. Without a word, he walked over to the brew table and put the kettle on. He threw a teabag into his mug and spooned a couple of sugars into it, before sitting down in a chair next to the table. Lizzie looked at Ronald, who was still fiddling with the medical equipment bags by the opposite door of the tent. Catching his eye, she looked at the door, and then back again at him. When he just shrugged his shoulders, she did it again. My God, she thought, he could be really thick at times. He looked back at her with a questioning expression, so she slowly mouthed the words ‘go away’ at him.

  Ronald got to his feet.

  ‘I’m just going to pop down to the NAAFI,’ he said. ‘Does anyone want anything?’

  ‘No, ta,’ Lizzie replied.

  ‘Boss?’ Ronald said, after a few seconds. Adams just looked at Ronald and shook his head.

  ‘Okay.’ Ronald looked pointedly at Lizzie. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’

  Lizzie watched as Ronald walked to the far end of the tent. As he reached the door, he looked back at Lizzie and stuck two fingers up at her. She couldn’t help grinning as the flap closed behind him. Walking over to where Adams was sitting, Lizzie grabbed one of the chairs next to
him and sat down.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep, all good.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it to me.’ Adams didn’t reply. ‘Good stuff,’ Lizzie continued after a few seconds. ‘I’ll just make myself a cup of tea then. Seeing as no-one’s offered to make me one.’ Adams stayed silent, staring at the kettle instead of replying. An uncomfortable silence descended between them, which was unusual.

  She waited for a minute until the kettle had boiled, and then watched Adams make two cups of tea, taking forever to squeeze the teabags. He handed one to her and sipped at the other one.

  ‘So,’ Lizzie said eventually.

  ‘So, what?’ Adams replied.

  ‘So, what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘That’s no language for a lady to be using. I said it’s nothing.’

  ‘Adams, you know I’m no lady,’ Lizzie said. ‘All woman me, but definitely not a lady,’ she continued, trying to lighten the mood. Adams said nothing but just stared into his tea. After a few minutes of silence, Lizzie had had enough.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Adams. What is it?’

  ‘I said it’s nothing, Lizzie. Just leave it.’

  ‘No, Adams. I won’t leave it. You mope in here, make a jack brew, and just sit there with a face on. Come on, don’t be a dick.’ She paused, waiting for a reaction from him. Nothing.

  She reached across and rubbed the back of his neck with her hand.

  ‘You’ve got hair like a hedgehog,’ she said, softly. After a few seconds, Adams replied.

  ‘How many hedgehogs have you stroked?’

  ‘Er, none.’ She paused. ‘Is there a joke in there about pricks somewhere?’ Adams snorted in response. Finally, Lizzie thought.

  ‘In fact, you’re right. Hedgehogs don’t technically have hair,’ he said. Lizzie squeezed the back of his neck before giving him a playful slap on the back of the head.

  ‘So, I take it you and the Colonel have had words, then?’ Adams looked up at Lizzie when she said this.

  ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘Woman’s intuition, lucky guess, I don’t know. I’m right, then.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Adams replied. ‘He wasn’t happy about the last job. He wants to charge me for disobeying an order.’ Adams slammed his mug down on the table, spilling the tea. Lizzie fought the urge to mop it up, and let Adams carry on. ‘I told him to bring it on. Let the world know about him wanting to triage the other casualties first, ignoring the most seriously injured one. But what would I know? I’m only a nurse, apparently.’

  Lizzie looked at Adams and her heart went out to him. She leaned across and gripped his hand.

  ‘Where’s the Colonel now?’

  ‘No idea, I just walked off. I mean, for fuck’s sake,’ Adams continued, ‘I could see his brains coming out of the fucking bandage, and the other two were walking-wounded. Triage, my hairy arse.’

  ‘I saw him still farting about in the back of the helo after we landed at the scene. Did he catch up with you before you got to the casualties?’

  ‘No, I beat him there,’ Adams replied with a grim smile. ‘Nearly bloody killed me, though. I was blowing out of my arse when I got to them, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of catching up. Mr “Oh I’ve just been for a run, look how sweaty I am.” I mean, seriously?’

  ‘Yep, I’m with you there,’ Lizzie said. ‘So, what was his problem?’

  ‘He was saying that he’s the senior clinical lead, and that I should have waited until he’d finished the triage,’ Adams replied. ‘Meanwhile, every Terry Taliban within earshot of the helicopter is getting suited and booted. Get them on and get the fuck out of there. That’s triage out there, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  21

  A couple of hours later, Adams was lying on one of the camp cots in the TRT tent reading the latest Peter James book Looking Good Dead that his girlfriend had sent out to him. When he heard the flaps at the far end of the tent open, he looked up to see the pilot, Davies, and the Australian loadie walking in.

  ‘We would have knocked,’ Davies said with a smile, glancing at the canvas flap, ‘but you don’t seem to have a door.’

  ‘Hello, chaps.’ Adams put his book down and sat up on the cot. ‘You’re a bit far from home. What brings you into this neck of the woods?’

  ‘Well, it’s either good news or bad news, depending on which way you look at it,’ Davies replied. ‘The Chinooks are all grounded. Technical fault with the low-level altitude sensor, apparently.’ He nodded towards the engineer. ‘Kinkers knows a bit more about it than me, though.’ Adams got to his feet to shake the loadie’s hand.

  ‘G’day mate,’ Kinkers said with an easy grin. ‘So, this is where the magic happens, is it?’

  ‘Not really, no,’ Adams replied. ‘This bit’s just a crew tent, but I can ask Ronald to show you around the rest of the hospital when he gets back if you want? You’ll get a better tour off him than you would off me. He seems to know everyone in the whole bloody place.’

  ‘That’d be awesome, mate,’ Kinkers said, his Australian twang more pronounced than usual.

  ‘Kinkers is keen to meet some of the nurses, apparently,’ Davies said as the exchange officer’s grin broadened.

  ‘What a surprise,’ Adams replied. He thought that a couple of the nurses would probably quite like to meet Kinkers, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘You must be like a pig in shit working here, don’t you think?’ Kinkers said. ‘This is probably the only place in the whole country that blokes actually want to work in.’

  ‘I’m a married man, Kinkers,’ Adams said. ‘Well, as good as anyway. That’s if she says yes.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Davies laughed. ‘When’s the poor girl going to get hit with the big question?’

  ‘Week or so,’ Adams replied. ‘When I’m on R&R. I’m planning a weekend away at a posh hotel, romantic dinner, plenty of wine.’

  ‘You’re bloody mad, mate.’ Davies was still laughing.

  ‘Is she fit?’ Kinkers asked, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be asking her to marry me if she wasn’t,’ Adams retorted.

  ‘You got a pic? Me and Davies here will give you a professional opinion.’ Adams thought about the photograph of Sophie tucked behind his Kevlar plate in his body armour. They had been staying at a hotel in Brighton, and the photograph was of Sophie standing by the large window of their bedroom looking out over the seafront, a sly smile on her face testament to what they’d been doing not long before he’d taken it. It was his favourite photograph of her by some distance, not because of the memories it generated, but because she looked absolutely beautiful. ‘Adams?’ Kinkers broke Adams’s concentration, and he looked at the Australian loadie. ‘Over here, mate. Get back in the room and show us a pic of the lovely lady.’

  ‘I can’t, Kinkers,’ Adams replied.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because if I did, then I’d die. It happens all the time in films.’ Davies started giggling, but Adams was only half-joking. He didn’t believe in superstition, but at the same time, he wasn’t going to tempt fate. ‘Would you two gents like a cup of our finest tea while we’re waiting for Ronald?’ Adams asked them, keen to steer the two men away from Sophie. ‘We’ve got both Tetley and PG Tips. I’m afraid we’re out of Darjeeling and Earl Grey, though.’

  Davies and Kinkers looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Adams went to the table to put the kettle on and looked inside a couple of mugs to see if anything was growing inside them. He picked up two of the cleaner looking ones and walked to the back of the tent to rinse them in the sink.

  ‘So, what’s the deal with the Chinooks then? How come they’re grounded?’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘There was a hard landing up at Kandahar by all accounts,’ Davies replied. ‘One of the crews on C Squadron pancaked in a complete brownout with a bunch of VIPs in the back. The loadie couldn’t
see shit, so they were going on instruments. The low-level altimeter said they were at thirty feet, but they weren’t.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Kinkers chipped in with a laugh. ‘Typical pilot, blaming the loadie.’

  ‘They banged it down with a proper thud,’ Davies continued. ‘In fairness, and I know the pilot pretty well, if he thought he was at thirty feet then he would have been coming in pretty quick. It’s a pride thing — come in hard, flare at the last minute, and then kiss the wheels to the dirt. If you think that you’re at thirty feet, then you’re still descending hard.’

  ‘Still pilot error though,’ Kinkers said. ‘Can’t blame the loadie for that one.’

  Adams listened to the aircrew banter as he finished making the tea. There was a sense of comfortable nonsense about the whole conversation, despite how serious the subject actually was.

  ‘So, what does that actually mean?’ Adams asked.

  ‘Well, the post-crash investigation — which was my mate Rich going around with a head torch — found out that the filter for the low-level altimeter was clogged up with sand. He fed it back to the UK as a big fucking problem, and the response back was to ground the fleet until we can get some new filters flown out,’ Davies explained.

  ‘Ouch,’ Adams said. ‘I can’t see that going down well with the big cheeses.’

  ‘Damn right,’ Davies replied. ‘Pretty much everything’s stopped. All offensive ops have been paused; no support means no operations. It should only be a few days though, just until they manage to get some replacements sent out.’

  ‘There you go, gents.’ Adams finished making the tea, and handed them both a mug. ‘Does either of you want sugar? It’s on the table if you do, and there are some sweeteners somewhere if you’ve got no sense of taste.’

  The flaps to the TRT tent opened again and Lizzie walked through, closely followed by Ronald. Not for the first time, Adams thought that Ronald was like a puppy the way he was always following Lizzie around