A Fallen Hero

by Sharon Kimbra Walsh

  She cannoned into him, almost knocking him off balance, flinging her arms around him. Joe’s arms went around her and held her tightly in a bear-like hug. For long moments she clung to him, so relieved that he was safe that her legs felt weak. At last, she looked up into his face.

  She noticed immediately that he looked exhausted. His eyes were red-rimmed, probably from the variety of dirty emissions in the smoke in the atmosphere, his face covered in black streaks and his T-shirt was equally dirty, dotted here and there with smears of blood. She could smell smoke and oil on him.

  “Are you all right?” she asked quietly and fearfully.

  Joe kissed her mouth before answering. “I’m fine. It’s hell out there. I can only stay a few minutes. I just wanted to see how you were.”

  He glanced around the tent. “What’s the status of the men?”

  “Come and take a look for yourself,” she said.

  She led him between the two rows of beds to where the unconscious patient lay. “This man has been unconscious since we brought him in. I haven’t been able to assess him properly because some of the tests I need to carry out can only be completed when conscious.

  “It’s my opinion—basic though it is—that he’s sustained a brain injury of some kind caused by the percussive effects either of the blasts or as a result of having been thrown. He really needs to get to the CTH as an urgent case.”

  She turned away and went to stand beside the second head injury case.

  “This man is here for observation because of a head wound. He’s fine, just needs some rest for twenty-four hours and painkillers. The third patient has a shrapnel wound in the upper part of his arm and some abrasions and cuts. I think he might have cracked a few ribs as well. I need to keep an eye on the wound for infection and twenty-four observations as well.”

  Katie sighed and led the way back down the tent. Turning to face Joe she said, “The unconscious patient needs to be medevacked out of here, Joe, because I can’t treat him. When can we have it? What’s going on out there?”

  Joe reached for her and pulled her against him. Holding her tightly and resting his chin on the top of her head he said, “From the Intel we’ve received, the Taliban pretty much has the FOB surrounded. We have no idea how big their force is but they have some pretty heavy duty firepower. They used RPGs to blow up the wall, so we have added security issues.

  The plan is to drop two lots of reinforcements about five clicks from here then outflank them from their rear. Once we beat the shit out of them, we can have a medevac in. Twenty-four hours, not until then. There’s too much of a risk of any bird being shot down.”

  “What about an air strike?” Katie asked.

  Joe sighed and rubbed his eyes, as though tired. “We received some Intel from a drone a while ago. The hostiles are too close to the FOB for comfort. The amount of explosive needed to get them all or even most of them would take them out but probably blow us all to Hell and back. They won’t risk it.”

  Katie remained still and the stress of the situation brought tears to her eyes.

  “Twenty-four hours until we can have a medevac?” she echoed. “Joe, I’m not sure the unconscious patient will last that long.”

  Joe could feel her trembling. “You can only do your best, honey,” he said. “I’m sorry but I need to get back out there. Stay in here. Get Corporal Bakht to get you chow.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Katie said, loathe to let him go. “But you be careful, you hear me. Please.”

  Joe lowered his head to kiss her once, hard, then slowly releasing her, he backed away, turned, then was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Joe stood outside the operations tent and wiped a gloved hand across his stubble-covered chin. His eyes ached from exhaustion—no sleep in forty-eight hours—and they felt irritated by the thick dust in the air. The temperature had soared late that afternoon and his combat shirt was soaked with sweat. He needed a drink of water and a shower in that order but could not see himself getting either any time soon.

  He gazed around him, checking on each pair of marines on duty in the guard towers and the two-meter high sandbag wall built to partially seal the gap in the FOB. He noted that his men’s postures looked alert, all pairs of eyes focused directly out onto the terrain surrounding them.

  He glanced casually over his shoulder toward the medical tent, hoping he would catch a glimpse of Katie, but he was out of luck. He had not seen her since the previous day and wondered how she was and how she was coping with having to deal with multiple casualties. He remembered the unshed tears that had glimmered in her eyes when he had briefly visited her in the tent the day before and the desperation he had heard in her voice when she had flung herself into his arms and asked pleadingly when help would be there so that her badly injured patients could be extracted to the safety of the CTH.

  Joe remembered the courageous tilt to her chin—such an inherent part of his wife’s character and one that brought on a surge of pride in her abilities—when he had explained that they were on their own for twenty-four hours.

  Now, smelling the stinging odor of smoke and coughing when it irritated his throat, he wished he could sneak off to see her again—purely for his own selfish reasons—but knew that that was impossible.

  Shrugging to ease the weight of his body armor and taking a firmer grip on his M4, Joe moved off to join his men at the sandbags. He noticed Louis Eastman standing with binoculars held up to his eyes, leaning on the top row of bags, and walked to join him, unhooking his own from his webbing.

  “Problem?” he asked.

  “Might be. The bastards are back again,” Louis answered, turning to Joe. “They popped their greasy heads up a few minutes ago. I think they might be regrouping.”

  “Fuck!” Joe exclaimed wearily.

  Slowly, he moved away from Louis, raising his binoculars to his own eyes and looking out onto the heat-hazed land in front of the FOB.

  “Will you get the fuck down, Joe,” Louis snapped.

  “We need…” Joe began.

  There was a sudden sharp retort from a weapon and Joe felt as though something enormously hard and heavy had hit the left side of his chest. His breath exploded out of his lungs and his mind reeled with the physical impact. He glanced down at himself—wondering dazedly what had happened—and felt his legs begin to give out beneath him while simultaneously feeling as though a jackhammer was vibrating through his ribs.

  Before he could figure out what was wrong, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. He literally felt himself picked up and thrown through the air before he landed with a thud on the ground, what little oxygen he had left in his lungs leaving through his wide-open mouth. The back of his head smacked the hard surface and he tried to curl into fetal position but found his body paralyzed.

  He felt an agonizing burning begin in his chest—gaining in intensity, taking over his body—the nerve synapses in his brain and spine spasming and sizzling with shock and the effects of the trauma to his central nervous system. The pain was like a knife and he found that his vision was beginning to fade until he could see nothing but white. Panic gripped him.

  The agony became all-encompassing and he felt his consciousness beginning to slip away. He heard shouts around him—his name called—boots thudding on the hard ground—screams.

  “Man down! Man down!”

  “Medic! Medic! We need the medic!”

  Joe began to feel a coldness growing in the depths of his body—spreading outward—gripping his limbs until he began to shiver. Noises around him began to diminish and he felt his eyes close as he plummeted into blackness.

  * * * *

  “Medic! Medic! We need the Medic! Man down!”

  Katie—inside the medical tent—heard the muffled, desperate-sounding shouts for her assistance and for a brief moment, the thought popped into her mind that she should stay within the reasonably safe confines of the tent using the excuse that she needed to keep an eye on her patients. She even gl
anced around her at the three men lying on the low beds, two asleep under the protection of their sedatives, one remaining unconscious, each hooked up to their IVs, their chests rising and falling comfortingly.

  Corporal Bakht, who had been working with her so tirelessly over the past twenty-four hours and who was now checking the unconscious patient’s vital signs, was staring at her, with what Katie could see was a puzzled expression on his face.

  Again, from outside came the almost desperate scream, “Man down! Where’s the fucking medic?”

  At this second prompting, Katie’s mind kick started itself into combat mode and she hurried toward the examination table and grabbed for the medical pack lying beneath it. Shrugging into the webbing, she slammed her helmet onto her head and ran for the tent entrance.

  Once outside, Katie barely noticed the wide, ragged hole in the wall, now partially sealed by a two-meter high sandbag barrier. Clouds of dust from gunfire, RPG and IED explosions still hung heavily in the hot air, making visibility and breathing difficult. Wisps of smoke still curled upward in to the late afternoon sky from the twisted wreckage of the MRAP.

  There were now two marines in each guard tower and lined up in front of the sandbag wall, more marines crouched, resting their weapons on the topmost row of the barrier. As she looked around her, trying to discover where the casualty lay, she spied a small group of marines standing around a figure lying on the ground. Her heart leaped into her mouth and she suddenly experienced a strong surge of nausea in her stomach.

  Louis Eastman—standing on the outskirts of the group—saw Katie appear from the tent, look wildly around, then begin to run toward him. His heart felt like a lead weight in his chest as he waited for her. As she drew closer, he saw the expression of fear on her face and held up a hand as if to stop her from approaching any closer.

  “Katie,” he began and stopped, unable to say anything else.

  His up-flung hand stopped Katie in her tracks a few meters from him and he watched as she stared at him, her green eyes wide, face pale. Their gazes locked, then her eyes darted away to focus on the figure lying on the ground.

  Katie’s legs threatened to collapse beneath her. At first, her mind refused to acknowledge the fact that the man on the ground looked familiar. She shook her head as though physical movement would dismiss the sight then with sudden horror she ran forward, pushing her way past Louis Eastman—who attempted to stop her—shoving her way through the other marines and reaching Joe’s side.

  “Oh, no, no” she whimpered, her gaze flicking from his white face to the dark blood saturating his body armor and combat shirt and finally focusing on the trembling, blood-stained hand which clutched high up on his left side.

  “Oh, Joe, no!”

  Katie dropped to her knees beside him and forgetting her role as a CTM and that he was a casualty of war, took his hand in hers.

  “Joe,” she called, hearing her voice catch on sobs that were threatening to overwhelm her and break free.

  A faint popping of gunfire from outside the FOB drifted to her ears but Katie immediately dismissed the sound as unimportant, her mind focused solely on her husband. His hand trembled faintly in hers and his skin was cold, almost clammy. She wanted to touch his face, take him in her arms, but realized that, for the moment, she needed to forget that he was her husband.

  Her combat role suddenly kicking in, Katie rested Joe’s hand beside him, shrugged out of her pack and threw it on the ground, pulling apart the Velcro fastenings as she did so. Struggling to control her emotions and the trembling that threatened to take control of her hands, she quickly and thoroughly ran them from the top of his head, down his torso and along each leg, performing a full body assessment in an attempt to discover if there were other less obvious injuries, which might be causing hidden bleeding.

  Finding none, Katie quickly unfastened Joe’s body armor, pulled it roughly over his head then pushed up his combat shirt and T-shirt beneath it. She discovered the neat bullet hole through the left side of his chest immediately and groaned.

  Dark arterial blood bubbled out of the small wound and she knew that the projectile had probably penetrated the parietal pleura, possibly piercing his lung, probably collapsing it and rupturing the surrounding outer membrane. The tear in the fragile sac was almost certainly allowing blood and fluids to leak into his chest cavity.

  She moved closer to him, bowing her head so that she could listen to his breathing to confirm her diagnosis. She heard his attempts to draw air into a lung that was no longer working and the distinct wheezing and bubbling sound as oxygen leaked from the ruptured organ.

  “Joe.”

  She shook him roughly. When he failed to respond to her voice, she shook him a second time—rougher still—and he groaned and opened his eyes, which immediately focused on hers.

  “Stay with me, Joe,” Katie begged. Then she said, “I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

  Grasping his left side, she rolled him forcefully toward her and, delving beneath his combat shirt and T-shirt with her hand, found a large exit wound, the blood slowly oozing out of him onto the sandy ground.

  Katie felt as if her own life was ending. The man she loved more than anything in the world appeared to be dying before her eyes and there was nothing she could do for him except the most basic of combat field medicine. She gently allowed him to roll onto his back and blindly reached for dressings.

  “We need a medevac,” she screamed, hearing panic in her voice. “Cat A—status urgent.”

  Not waiting for a response, she began to slap dressings on both the entrance and exit wounds. She could do nothing for the type of wound Joe had sustained. It was beyond her medical knowledge and the scope of the equipment she had with her. He urgently needed the CTH’s resources and the skills of the medical personnel there. Katie could only make him comfortable by hooking him up to an IV with the usual solutions to replace blood loss and to prevent the onset of shock—and pray that the CTT would reach them in time—if it managed to avoid being shot down by the enemy.

  She felt a terrible feeling of helplessness and a deep sense of how futile her place was in the field of war when her expertise, called on so many times—in this instance to aid the most special person in her life—was so inadequate.

  Having taped the dressings firmly in place, Katie reached for a cannula and a bag of volume blood expander, necessary to replace blood loss.

  Joe—suddenly animated—grabbed her hand.

  Her actions arrested, Katie clasped it, not even feeling the claw-like crushing grip he had on her fingers.

  Tears filling her eyes, she leaned closer to him. “What, Joe?” she asked.

  She watched as he struggled to speak. He coughed hoarsely and thick, glutinous blood trickled slowly from the corner of his mouth and down his neck. He began to choke, blood spraying from his mouth, some of the hot droplets hitting Katie as she leaned over him.

  An icy terror gripped her and tears began to trickle down her face. She quickly turned Joe’s head to one side so he wouldn’t choke on the blood, then grabbed his hand with both of hers, as though she could transfer some of her own life force into his body and keep him with her.

  “Tell me, Joe,” she whimpered. “What can I do?”

  Joe cleared his throat.

  “It hurts like hell,” he murmured. “I’m tired, Katie, so tired.”

  His eyes closed briefly then opened again, staring directly into hers.

  Katie saw the agonized expression in the deep blue and wanted to scream.

  “I know you’re tired, Joe,” she answered hearing her voice tremble, “But stay with me. You have to stay with me, you hear me? Listen to my voice. Focus. The medevac will be here soon and we’ll get you to the CTH. You’re going to be fine.”

  Joe shook his head slightly. “Let me go, Katie,” he whispered. “It hurts so fucking much. I’m done. There’s nothing left.”

  Katie stared at him horrified, realizing what he was trying to say.


  “No!” she shouted at him. “Don’t you dare fucking leave me. You can’t leave me, Joe. I love you. Damn you, stay with me!”

  Joe raised a shaking, bloodied hand and cupped the side of her face.

  “Let me go,” he repeated more softly then groaned, the sound erupting from his mouth, spiraling up and up into the dusty air until he was almost screaming.

  Katie crawled up to kneel beside her husband’s head, lifted him by his shoulders, and cradling his upper body in her arms, held him as tightly as she could.

  Watching the pitiful scene, Louis Eastman hung his head. He was done. There was nothing of him left. Emotionally and physically exhausted from the scene playing out before him and from the events of the last few days, Louis wanted out—from the Marines and from Afghanistan. He wanted a peaceful life with his wife and children. Seeing his friend and marine buddy lying badly hurt on the ground had brought home just how old and mentally burned out he felt.

  He heard movement beside him then the remark, “What the hell?”

  Glancing up and to his left, Louis saw Corporal Dan Reed standing beside him, watching his staff sergeant and Katie Anderson in a scene that was representative of a man and woman who were more than a squad leader and a CTM.

  Louis sighed, shook his head, and said, “Let it rest, buddy.”

  He watched anger appear on the young corporal’s face, accompanied by a look of confusion and betrayal.

  “What the fuck is going on between those two?” Dan Reed asked again.

  Feeling a whiplash of anger overtake him, Louis moved in front of the corporal and snapped, “He’s not doing so good, and he’s her husband. Your fucking personal feelings about this are the least of their problems. Have some decency. Now fuck off and leave them in peace.”

  Louis watched as enlightenment dawned on Dan Reed’s face, then an expression of hurt and finally silent understanding followed. Corporal Reed backed away and stood with hands on hips, head lowered.