Walk a Lonesome Road

by Ann Somerville

  Ren’s physical limitations are a problem, and he has to rest after each operation, drinking some sweetened tea, or taking a moment or two to piss. But he’s intent and focussed, his pale face above the mask showing both his recently ill condition and his determination to save as many lives as he can. Kazmi Harno works with them the rest of that day and through the night, as translator, as medic, organising men, equipment and supplies, making things happen when they need to.

  It’s dawn before the last injured man is operated on, and his wounds dressed. Ren strips off mask, gloves and apron, tosses them at a basket in the corner, then staggers over to the sink to wash his hands and arms. As he finishes, he plucks distractedly at his blood-spattered scrubs, his previous alertness suddenly gone. Dek’s already on the move when he sees him crumpling but isn’t in time to catch him—it’s Harno, who’s been watching Ren just as closely, who does that.

  “Help me,” Harno orders Dek, and together they get Ren over to a hastily dragged in cot. He’s out—his pulse is fast, and his face is covered in cold sweat. Dek stares at him helplessly, wondering how sick he is, and who will treat him since he’s their only doctor.

  Harno calls over a medic who does a quick assessment. “I think he’s just tired. I’ll watch him, call you if there’s any change.”

  “I’ll watch him,” Dek says, but Harno shakes his head.

  “No—you come with me.” Dek lifts his head, prepared to argue. “My friend, you look like a gekel dropping. I’m offering food, clean clothes and rest. Arwe Ren will be cared for like one of our own, I promise.”

  Dek is so tired that it takes him several seconds to process the statement. “Thank you,” he says finally.

  Food and clothing is his most pressing desire, and after he’s given a set of fatigues to change into, probably from a dead man’s kit though Dek’s too polite to ask, he’s taken to a crowded canteen. Several soldiers recognise him from the hospital and smile at him, but most are exhausted, same as Dek, and intent only on their food. Harno, tired as he is, is determined to look after him, and guides him over to the food. He’s given generous helpings of flat bread and a thick, spicy stew that brings back some bittersweet memories of his life in Febkeinzian with Lomare. The warmth in his belly goes some way toward waking him up, but he’s got very little left in him now.

  Harno watches him eat. “I don’t understand you,” he says finally. “You’re lying to us about your real reasons for being in Febkeinzian, and yet you act with honour towards us. The Febkeinze aren’t your enemy—why not tell us the truth?”

  Dek looks at Harno’s honest, tired face, and knows he’s a good man, a decent officer. They wouldn’t want Ren’s death on their souls, and if Ren’s going to force them to shoot him, then Dek has nothing left to lose. But still he hesitates. The Febkeinze are allies now, but they haven’t always been, they might not be in the future. What’s been done to Ren is revolting...but it’s still a Pindoni military secret.

  Harno watches him trying to make up his mind. “I sense you scruple not for yourself but for someone else.”

  “Something else. My country.” And also...maybe the secret isn’t what he thinks it is. Why couldn’t Ren have been honest with him from the start? “I don’t even know if what I know, is actually real.”

  Harno tilts his head, calculating. “You have only a small part of the story?”

  “Yes. I don’t know the implications of telling you. Not just for us....”

  “My friend, at some point you have to trust someone else. Arwe Ren is dying, you said. If that’s true in any sense, if there’s a way of preventing that, maybe that’s something you have to try.”

  And that’s what it comes down to, in the end. Politics, secret research, even Ren’s lies, aren’t as important as the fact that if Dek does nothing, Ren will surely die from a bullet or a pregnancy that should never have been. And that, Dek can’t allow. Too many deaths have scarred him. He won’t let Ren die if he can stop it. “If I tell you the truth, as much of the truth as I know, will you promise to listen?”

  Harno pauses, considering. “Will you tell my reteri?”

  “If you want. But you have to be there so he knows that I’m not lying.”

  “As you wish.”

  Dek pushes his bowl away. “Let’s get it over with.” Ren is going to kill him when he wakes up, but Dek’s out of options if he wants to save Ren’s life.

  The reteri’s had no more sleep than Dek or Harno, but he receives them with courtesy, and offers Dek a seat. “Utag, your friend did wonderful work for us. I’ll make that clear in my report. Thank you, thank you both.”

  “Nothing more than either of us would do for any fellow soldier,” Dek says. “He was in the army for five years too.”

  “Ah. Then it makes your behaviour before even more perplexing.”

  Harno clears his throat. “Sir, he has something to tell you.”

  Guei waves his hand and leans back in his chair, his eyes drooping a little in raw fatigue. “You have my complete attention, Utag.”

  So Dek tells them everything, precisely and in military, linear fashion, using terms they’ll understand and no description that’s more than pure fact. He tells them how he found Ren, what Ren told him, and what’s been done to the man. The reteri sits up very straight when Dek explains about the pregnancy, but Harno only nods, confirming that Dek isn’t lying, and Guei doesn’t say anything until Dek finishes. “You believe he can be helped in the Weadenal? Why not here?”

  “Two reasons,” Dek says, too tired to be diplomatic. “One, you might take him back to Pindone, and two, he says it’s unlikely any but your biggest hospitals could even cope. That’s if they’d believe his story in the first place. Reteri, he can’t go back to Pindone. He would rather die—literally. If you return him, you’re sending him to his death, and not even a quick, merciful one. Kazmi, you’ve seen his body.”

  “He’s really pregnant?” Harno asks. Dek nods. “By all the blessed spirits.”

  “And if we don’t get him somewhere that can handle the operation, he’ll die in agony. Please...as an officer and a gentleman, I’m asking you, just let us go. We’re leaving your country anyway. You know we weren’t helping those rebels.” He points at the bruises on his own face. “He wasn’t going to help them until they threatened me.”

  “You are both lucky in your friends, Utag,” Guei said. He glances at his subordinate, who nods. “Very well. I’m going to break every regulation and let you go, but I need a favour before I do that,” he says, raising his hand as Dek starts to speak. “I would be very grateful if you two would consent to remain three more days until the replacement doctor comes. I understand his condition is urgent, but I can put you on a boat to Jurgizme Port, give you proper credentials and you’ll be there in a week’s time. You should be able to get to the Weadenal from there without difficulty.”

  Dek barely dares to hope. “I thought the river was blocked by the rebels.”

  “Not anymore,” Harno says with a feral smile. “That’s why they’ve shifted operations east. We’re taking losses, but not as many as they are.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Dek says, and means it. If there are institutional problems in this country—and there are—he knows a war won’t solve them. “We’ll stay. Thank you for the help.” He’s half afraid this is some kind of trick except both men are too tired for that kind of nonsense.

  “Only what you—and he—have earned. Besides—what’s been done to him isn’t how a pious nation treats its people,” Guei says, shaking his head. “Now, Utag Dekan, go rest and trust us to look after your friend.”

  “Just want to see him first,” Dek says, even though his body is demanding a cot and about twelve hours’ sleep.

  “As you wish. We’ll speak again.”

  Ren’s right where Dek and Harno left him, still in his dirty scrubs though someone’s covered him with a couple of blankets. Dek touches his face—it feels more normal now. Probably just tiredness after all. �
��It’s going to be all right,” he whispers. “You don’t have to die now.”

  He straightens up and see Harno watching him. “The love between friends is a beautiful thing,” the man says, and Dek can’t tell if he’s being ironic.

  “I barely know him.”

  “Even so. This way.”

  Dek glances back. Yes. A friend. Whatever secret Ren is carrying, they’ve been through too much to call him anything else now.

  Walk A Lonesome Road: 16

  He sleeps until well after noon, waking from a nightmare, and confused as to why the tent looks all wrong and too big. Then he remembers. He sits up, groaning a little at the ache in his back and his leg, which he was standing on for far too long yesterday and which didn’t appreciate the rough handling he received. His pack and clothes are neatly set in the corner of Kazmi Harno’s tent, which is where a cot has been set up for him. He changes out of the borrowed fatigues and into his own clothes, then goes looking for Ren. There’s a soldier outside the tent, not set to guard him exactly, just to make sure he’s all right. He tells Dek that his friend is in the recovery tent, and how to get there.

  The recovery tent is full, but more orderly than the scene in the hospital the night before, long rows of neat cots and bandaged patients, with medics and other soldiers attending to them. The stink of blood and other bodily fluids is there and inescapable, but the clean sharpness of disinfection is stronger, a sign that order has been imposed on the previous chaos and that these men are lucky to be alive and safe. It’s more primitive than Dek’s used to from the Pindoni army, and he’s seen how antiquated their supplies and equipment are, but at least the patients have a chance of survival they wouldn’t have had without Ren and the medics and the dedication of their fellow soldiers.

  Ren’s sitting at a soldier’s bedside, holding his hand and talking in a low voice, though Dek doesn’t know if the man can understand him. He’s still in scrubs, clean ones this time, with a battle jacket over the top, unfastened—they don’t make fatigues for pregnant soldiers in Febkeinzian because women aren’t allowed to serve, but even the Pindonis wouldn’t have uniforms to fit Ren’s peculiar shape. He looks beyond exhausted, and Dek feels a flash of anger at whoever’s asked him to go back to work before he’s rested. Ren, apparently sensing him, looks up and over, then smiles. Dek walks over, preparing to order him off his feet and to chew him out for being a moron. “Hey,” Ren says. “What’s wrong?”

  “Why aren’t you resting?”

  Ren’s smile slips. “Not here. Go outside, I’ll come to you.”

  Dek thinks about standing his ground, but they’re in a room full of sick and injured men and there are soldiers attending to them who won’t appreciate a scene any more than Dek would have done back in the day, so he turns on his heel and stalks out. The compound is quiet, especially compared to the last time he’d seen it. It’s another dry day—the sun is fierce, but out of its rays, it’s still bitterly cold. At least the wind’s dropped temporarily. Dek doesn’t miss Febkeinze weather at all.

  Ren is another ten minutes, and Dek’s on the verge of going in search of him when he appears. “Sorry—got caught up.” Someone’s lent him a heavier coat, but he looks pinched and cold as he huddles into it.

  “You should be in bed,” Dek snaps. “You look like shit.”

  “Yes, I feel like shit, but there’s no point in lying down if I can’t sleep and I can’t get comfortable. I’ve eaten, and I’ll rest later, but they need me. We lost another two people this morning.”

  “And they’d have lost more if not for you. You can’t save them all.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Dek. I’ve been a doctor for a very long time. I’ve seen a lot of people die. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. And why are you such a grouch this morning?”

  Because I’m worried about you, Dek thinks but doesn’t say. “Reteri Guei’s agreed to help us get to Jurgizme Port, but he’s asked if you can hold on a few days until their replacement doctor comes. The river’s clear again. We can be there before the end of next week.”

  “Really? That’s.... It’s not a trick, is it?” Ren frowns, and Dek doesn’t blame him for his suspicion.

  “No, it’s not. He’s grateful for what you’ve done and...I told him the truth about you.” Now if you would only tell me the truth, he thinks, but he doesn’t want that discussion here.

  Ren’s eyes go wide. “Why?”

  “Because it was that or let you kill yourself. They’re sympathetic, Ren. They won’t hand you back to the Pindonis. They can’t do more than help us get to the coast, but that’s a lot of help right there.”

  “They know...about the....”

  “Yes, they do. Which is why I think they shouldn’t be asking you to work.”

  Ren folds his arms. “No one ‘asked’ me. I chose. They need me. This is what I want to do. What I trained to do. It makes up for so many things. Please don’t give me a hard time.”

  Looking at it from that perspective, maybe it’ll do more good for Ren than harm. “All right. But I want to work with you. You need a translator.”

  “Yes, I do, and you’re a great medic,” Ren says. The praise warms Dek oddly since he’s never seen himself as being one for the caring professions. “But you look like crap too, so you better look after yourself. Have you eaten? Then go do that and come back when you’re ready. Dek...is it going to work, do you think?”

  After yesterday, Dek’s beginning to think some deity’s definitely watching over them, though which of several he could choose from, he doesn’t know. “Yes,” he said with all the certainty he can muster. “You’re going to make it.” Ren’s smile is one of the best things he’s seen in nearly a month. “But you take it easy—you took some hits yesterday. Is it all right?” he asks, gesturing discreetly at Ren’s belly.

  “I think so. I’d be feeling more symptoms if it wasn’t. I’m bruised and sore, but you stopped me getting hurt any worse. I’ll be careful, I swear.”

  “Better be. Right—go back in the warm, I’ll find you.”

  Ren snaps off a salute. “Yes, sir!” he says, then grins, daring Dek to complain.

  Dek just pulls a face and waves the silly sod away. What a goof.

  Walk A Lonesome Road: 17

  They work hard for their hosts, but are repaid in kindness and care, and Dek has no complaints. Ren works his arse off, but there’s a spirit to his movements, to his expression, that’s been missing for weeks. When he’s not actually working with patients, he’s training the medics in modern clinical practices, and Dek wonders what the hell their country was thinking to throw such a talented, dedicated physician away just for some stupid experiments that led exactly nowhere.

  Harno and Guei are grateful and offer as much help as they can, explaining to Dek how to get to the coast without delay, which inns were cheap and decent, and providing both an official request for safe conduct and bona fides, which will ease many difficulties. They even offer to take the animals off his hands, but Dek won’t hear of it, though it’ll make things a little more awkward. His urtibes have more than earned the right to go home.

  When the new doctor arrives with the other replacement personnel, Ren consents for his medical condition to be revealed to him, so long as Reteri Guei impresses on him the need for absolute confidentiality, which the reteri readily agrees to. Dek paces and frets while the doctor spends over two hours talking privately with Ren, though surely some of that is discussing the patients. He pounces when Ren finally emerges. “Well?”

  “I’m fine,” Ren says with a tired smile. “The baby’s fine too, so far as he can tell—the heartbeat’s good, and the position doesn’t suck too much. He tested my blood sugar and it’s normal, so I don’t have gestational diabetes, fortunately. And he says I need to get it out of me as soon as I can, which I already knew. He took it extremely well, considering. Army doctors don’t see a lot of pregnancies anyway, let alone a pregnant man.”

  “No,” Dek agrees, althoug
h their unit’s field hospital always seemed to be dealing with the births of local women or their sick children. “And he understands the need to keep it quiet?”

  “Oh yes,” Ren says, his expression becoming solemn. “He gave me a full check up. He’s pretty horrified at the things they did to me, and he doesn’t even know about the non-physical stuff. The Feb-gaili religion is very big on the integrity and sanctity of the body, on modesty and that kind of thing. He said what I’ve been through is an abomination under their laws.”

  “It is under ours too,” Dek growls. It’s wrong that they can’t expose the travesty of justice that Ren’s case represents, but Ren’s right—it’s too risky for his family. They can only hope one day the truth will come out, though it might not be until after their deaths.

  They stay one more day, just to allow Ren to rest and finish up his tasks. Then Harno arranges for them and the animals to be taken by transport to Jikl Bridge—a trip which would take them six days by urtibes, will take them a mere three hours this way. Reteri Guei thanks them, wishes them luck and reassures Ren that no one will learn of them from him or any of his people. Kazmi Harno supervises the loading of the animals and their belongings into the transport trailer, then comes to them as they’re ready to go. He gives Dek the formal Febkeinze salute, and Dek returns it with the Pindoni equivalent. “It’s been an honour, Kazmi.”

  “And I also am honoured, Utag.” Harno offers Ren his hand. “Arwe Ren, you have blessed us. We’ll pray for you and the health of your child.”

  “Thank you, Kazmi Harno. You’ve blessed me too, more than you know.” He squeezes the man’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, good luck and may the spirits watch over you.”