by Dianne Drake
“What do you mean, walking out on them? He said he had a disagreement and left, but I didn’t get the impression he’d gone out and started up on his own. At least, he didn’t mention that.” They were outside on the veranda, the door closed, and no matter if David was asleep or awake he couldn’t hear this conversation—the one he’d been keeping from her that she wanted to hear. “Tell me what you know, Howard. And, more specifically, do you think someone at IMO might have it out for him so badly they would do this to him?”
“Let me answer the last part of that first. IMO is full of doctors and nurses and, David was generally well respected in IMO. So I can’t imagine one of them took a berserk notion to whack him about. Of course, starting up on his own has ruffled more than a few of the top-flight IMO feathers. It’s made them re-evaluate their mission and start to tidy up their own little house. Or so I’ve heard.” He chuckled. “Funny how he ended up here, isn’t it? And with you starting up that training program to send nurses off to IMO.”
“Just two days’ orientation to the region. The illnesses, the bugs, the poisonous snakes. That’s all we’ve been doing in Chandella.” Her contribution to what she thought was a worthy cause. For another month anyway. Then she’d be gone.
Howard drew in a deep sigh, then let it out slowly. “Your patient is a bit of a rabble-rouser, by the way. As he left IMO, he made a comment about them being a festering boil on somebody’s bottom. They didn’t take kindly to that, since it made the newspapers.”
“But they harbor him no ill will?”
“On the contrary, they harbor him quite a lot of ill will, I should think. But I don’t think they’d beat him up over it.”
That was one of the things she loved most about Howard. He was almost too civilized for his own good. Always the optimist, always the caring humanitarian.
“Well, someone took a boot and a gun to him, for whatever reason, then he threw himself into the side of my car and I’ve been dealing with him ever since. And you know how I feel about that.”
“I suppose I do! You’re the young lady who won’t get involved. How very noble of you, sparing some deserving young man your charms.”
“Do you mean some deserving young man who doesn’t mind dismantling his life and following me whenever I get the whim?”
“I should think that once you know your foible, you could correct it.”
“Foible?” Solaina laughed. “The only foible I can see in what I do is becoming involved with a charming man who thinks my lifestyle is only a foible and not a choice.”
“Yet you protest it so vehemently. It makes me think that your thoughts are running much closer to mine than you’d care to admit.”
“We all can’t be as happy as you are, Howard. You are one of the lucky ones who’s had everything.”
“So you’re admitting that your life doesn’t make you happy?”
He was a dear man, and she adored him. But he’d been persisten. about her happiness for such a long time now that she was worn out on the subject. Her life was what it was, what she made it.
“Well, if it’s of any consequence, your David is a brilliant surgeon. And what he’s doing out there…”
“Out where?” she interrupted.
“A nice little town called Kantha. And a lovely little hospital he calls Vista. They take care of landmine casualties among the rurals mostly. The farmers, the rice pickers, the people who wander about from place to place, looking for work—and that doesn’t include you, dear. Although that’s what you do, isn’t it?”
He just wasn’t going to get off the subject of her. Instead of fussing with him, she decided to keep the conversation focused on David, no matter how much Howard wanted to divert it. “But he hasn’t said anything about a hospital.”
“He has been quite sick, and didn’t you say his favorite topic is shrubbery or some sort?”
“When he’s out of his head he does like to go on about bushes. But he’s had moments when he’s not been so daft, and he still didn’t say anything.” Of course, what he did in the outside world was none of her business. That’s the smartest way to go, Laina. Stay completely uninvolved. That’s what her brain was telling her anyway. But part of her really did want to know more about him. After all, it wasn’t every day she got to bring a total stranger into her bed, even if it was only to nurse him until better medical help arrived.
“Well, it is a bit of a clandestine affair after all. Not exactly well hidden, but not exactly out in the open. Discretion is the better part of valor, and all that.”
“Yet you know about it.”
“I know about a great many things, dear.”
“So in your vast vault of personal knowledge, is there anything else about him that you can recall?” she asked.
“That’s all there is to say, really. At least, all I know to tell you. Your friend took a couple of their best doctors with him when he left, and that’s all I can say on the matter.” Howard raised a finger to his lips to shush her before she could ask anything else, then strolled over to David’s bedside.
“Dr Gentry, I presume?” He chuckled.
“Only if you come bearing forceps, because I’m ready to get the bullet out of my shoulder any way I have to.”
“Long forceps, Doctor. And a nice, sharp scalpel if I’m in need of a good cut to cure my surgical lusts.”
“It’s nice to see you, Howard,” David said. “Pardon me for not shaking hands with you, but my shaking arm is otherwise occupied.”
“You two know each other?” Solaina sputtered. “Why didn’t you say something to me, Howard?”
“To be honest, I didn’t know it was him. Didn’t know who it was until I came in to fetch Victoria’s naam phon-la-mai. I must say, I was a bit surprised, as he’s been missing for a while.”
“But you didn’t tell me you knew him when I did mention his name.”
“And you didn’t ask if I did. So we’re even.” Howard snapped on a pair of rubber gloves he’d brought with him and began to peel away the bandage from David’s shoulder. “Nasty little wound,” he said, more to himself than to either David or Solaina. “Good bit of infection going on, too. No gangrene that I can see, though.”
“Like I said, he’s been feverish,” Solaina said. “And delusional off and on. He talks to trees and shrubs.”
“Talks about trees and shrubs,” David corrected her, then gritted his teeth for what was about to come. Howard was standing over him, uncapping the bottle of alcohol—and it wasn’t the kind meant to be ingested.
“I think this is going to hurt like hell,” Howard said. “But I need to get in to do a nice deep clean before I do anything else, and this is the fastest way to do it.”
Solaina turned away. Even a little alcohol on a tiny cut brought tears to her eyes, and there was no way she wanted to watch something that painful happening to David.
“No, dear. You don’t get to close your eyes for this one,” Howard said. “You’re a nurse, and I need a nurse.”
“You know what kind of nurse I am,” Solaina protested.
“A very good one at what you do, and a very good one overall, I suspect, even though you won’t admit it. But you’ve done a splendid job with David so far, Solaina. Remarkable, in fact. When I first talked to you last night and you described his condition, I expected to find someone just a breath or two away from being a memory. His infection is much better since you cleaned his wound earlier and I think the antibiotics are working. You’ve hydrated him nicely without the benefit of an IV and gotten a little nourishment into him. You’ve patched up those ribs so they don’t burst his lung. A good job of it, indeed.
“In fact, if you’d ever care to come out from behind your desk, I think you’d make a very good practicing nurse. And just to prove my point, what you’re going to do right now is be my hands. I’ll hold the lad down and you’ll yank the bullet out of his arm.” He grinned at her through his beard. “A simple procedure, really. All it takes is two good hands, which
I no longer have.”
“Me?” she sputtered. “You want me to remove the bullet?” Solaina shook her head frantically. “No,” she choked, stepping back from Howard. “I can’t do that. I can’t operate on him!”
“And with the arthritis in my hands, you expect me to?” Howard held up his hands to prove his point, and even through the surgical gloves his swollen, bent knuckles were obvious. “So unless you expect David to do the job himself…” He handed a pair of surgical gloves to Solaina, which she tossed aside immediately. “Piece of cake, dear. You probe the wound, then when you find the bullet you grab hold and yank it out.”
“And if I don’t find the bullet?”
“You try again.” He looked down at David, frowning. “I don’t have any drugs, but would a spot of whiskey set you up for this?”
“More than a spot,” David said. “Maybe two or three.”
“A good man knows the value of good liquor. Straight?” he asked.
“Straight. No point in making it a social drink with all the extras, is there, when all I want to do is kill the pain?”
“Howard!” Solaina snapped. “He’s been delirious off and on for the better part of the night and day. And you’re offering him…”
“An anesthetic. Medicinal purposes only.” He laughed heartily. “Unless you’d rather make the man suffer, it’s the best I can do for him.”
Solaina heaved an exasperated sigh. This wasn’t how she’d planned on this ordeal resolving itself. Howard was supposed to do the operation, then David was supposed to leave. Simple as that! Only now she was going to do the operation and David was going to be so liquored up he’d be lucky to get out of here by morning. “I can’t do this,” she protested one more time, not that it was going to do any good. Howard was absolutel. set on this, and the practical thought of bundling David up and taking him to Chandella for an X-ray and surgery straight away was nowhere on the agenda. He wasn’t up to it yet. Even she could tell that much.
Heaving a deep sigh, Solaina went to the sink to scrub up. “Care for a cigar with your whiskey, gentlemen?” she muttered a minute later, as Howard uncapped the drinking alcohol and she uncapped the cleansing alcohol. When she’d cleaned David’s wound previously, she’d used hydrogen peroxide. It worked well enough, went all bubbly and didn’t particularly sting. The alcohol would work much better, but sting was an understatement. The fiery burn of the disinfectant would nearly rip his wound in half it would hurt so bad, and she was already cringing, thinking about it. Her hands were shaking, too, and her stomach churning. Next her head would go light. It always did when she found herself near a situation like this—something more than an easy patch-up.
But Howard could not do this, and she had to keep reminding herself of it. Making such a fuss over doing it herself would only remind him of the skills he’d lost, which would hurt him deeply. Victoria had told her how it depressed him. And Solaina would never hurt Howard for anything. So just keep quiet and do it. For Howard.
“There’s still dirt in the wound,” Howard said. “Under the bullet, which is why we’re removing it. And I don’t want him out of this bed for twenty-four hours. He’s stable, but being stable doesn’t mean it’s time to chuck him out the door. He needs better antibiotics before we do anything with him, and overall staying here and resting is his best option.”
Howard handed Solaina another package of disposable gloves, since she’d disposed of the first ones. “Today’s a lovely day for a spot of surgery, don’t you think?”
At the bedside, as ready as she would ever be to do this, Solaina snapped on her gloves and took a good, hard look at David’s wound. It certainly didn’t seem any worse than it had earlier. If anything, it looked a tad better, which was a relief. Cleaner now, for sure. And maybe not quite so inflamed around the edges. That probably meant the peroxide had worked a little and the antibiotics were finally kicking in. Howard was correct, though. The bullet did need to come out, considering how dirty David had been when she’d first found him. Even her first effort at cleansing the wound had produced some grisly results. And heaven only knew what was still lurking about in that little hole.
All good and well, but the part where she went in after the bullet was anything but good, and she cringed again, thinking about it. No, she wasn’t going to faint or do something prissy or absurdly stupid like that. But after this mess was over, she was definitely going for the whiskey.
“Are you OK with this, David?” she asked, taking a seat on the chair next to the bed in order to position herself at the same level as her operating field. Her operating field. Those were words she’d never heard or thought before. “With me doing the…procedure.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the “surgery.”
“I think I should be the one asking you if you’re OK,” he replied, then tossed back his first shot of whiskey. Down in one gulp, he held out the glass for Howard to pour another. That one was gone almost as quickly as the first. “I’m not much of a drinking man any more,” he said in a rather slurred voice.
Solaina looked over at Howard and gave him the nod for one last round of anesthetic. Once David had downed that, she noted that his eyelids were drooping. Good sign. “Now or never,” she whispered, then gave Howard the go-ahead to support David’s ribs with a pillow. The last thing she wanted was to have him flinch or resist, and cause himself more damage. “I’m sorry about this, David. I wish you were in different hands.” As she said the words, she poured the cleansing alcohol on his open wound, then sucked in a deep breath and held it, expecting a reaction from him.
His body did jerk a couple of times, and his eyes flew open and fixed on her for almost a minute, probably until the initial shock of the alcohol died down. But he didn’t scream, as she’d expected. And that surprised her. Of course, David was a strong man, or he wouldn’t have survived to this point. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wish I didn’t have to…”
“Wishes don’t count here,” Howard interrupted. “But bullets do, and as gunshot wounds go, you’ve hit a bit of luck, I think. This one’s a low-velocity wound, with minimal damage to the tissue, from what I could tell when I removed the bandages. Barely more than a flesh wound, and normally I wouldn’t recommend doing this out here like we are, but since he’s already fighting a pretty nasty infection, we need to get that controlled. So I think the best way to proceed under the circumstance is to get it clean under the bullet, which means it’s time to get the bullet out, Solaina.”
“That’s it?” she asked, bracing herself for the ordeal. “Get the bullet out? That’s my instruction here?”
“Go find the bullet,” David slurred.
“That’s it,” Howard responded. “Simple operation, and it will only take a minute or two.” He chuckled, raising his whiskey to his lips. “Fretting over this has already taken far longer than the procedure will.”
She nodded. Biting her lower lip, she made a hasty wish on the remains of her little red-lipped Buddha, then finally reconciled herself to the task. Like it or not, she was going to have to be a nurse here, and not the kind who pushed papers for a living. “What do I do first?” she asked.
“Probe outside the wound,” David responded from his inebriated stupor, then gave her a silly grin. “Guess I’m not the doctor here, am I?”
“Oh, you’re the doctor,” she said, feeling the muscle around the hole where the bullet was lodged. “The drunk doctor.”
“Wasn’t that the point of the whiskey?” he asked.
“I can’t operate on a talking patient,” she said as she applied gentle pressure with her gloved fingertips to the site.
“Good bedshide manner,” David responded, his words slurring badly now.
Solaina looked up at Howard. “What am I supposed to do about him? I don’t want him talking to me, and I don’t want him watching me.”
“Put a pillow on his face,” Howard said, smiling. “That should take care of both matters quite handily, I should think.”
“
What am I supposed to do about you?” she snapped at Howard, turning her attention back to David’s wound. All things considered, it was small—no bigger around than her thumb. The edges were neat enough, and as she continued to probe she found a hard object under his skin. And not so far under that it should be a problem, she hoped.
Logic dictated the next step—go after the bullet. But as she picked up the package containing the sterile forceps, she looked at Howard for moral support. He merely nodded. That was it. She was on her own now. He’d passed her the figurative baton, or in this case the forceps, and the bullet was hers to remove. Drawing in a deep breath to steady her nerves, she ripped open the package, put on a pair of fresh gloves, removed the forceps from it and entered the wound site.
David stirred a little at her first probe, and muttered something she couldn’t understand. He didn’t thrash about, though, and she wondered if somewhere in his drunken daze he was still alert enough to co-operate, to make this easier on her. He would do that, she thought. He was a considerate man, judging from what little she knew of him. Or maybe the whiskey was working better than she’d expected.
Whatever the case, Solaina probed until she found the bullet, then grabbed it with the forceps and backed it out of the wound. In and out, it took less than a minute—probably the longest minute of her life. “Done,” she said, proud of her work. A great surgeon she was not, but in this one little instance an adequate one. “It’s so small,” she said, taking a good look at it before she dropped it on a towel lying on the table next to the bed. So small it was no larger than the fingertip of her little finger.
“A mere toy,” Howard said. “Out here they use bigger bullets than that to shoot the mosquitoes. I’d say this was a warning and not meant to be a fatality.”
“Except he almost died, no matter what the size,” Solaina said, cleaning the wound site with a gauze strip soaked in alcohol. “Are you OK, David?” she asked, as Howard took hold of David’s wrist to feel for a pulse.
“He’s dandy,” Howard said. “Passed out drunk, I think. But fine. So let’s get that thing cleaned out and wrapped, then go have some naam phon-la-mai with Victoria while David’s sleeping off his binge. My poor wife has been out there on the beach all alone for much too long.” Howard pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket and sat them on the table next to the bed. “Scrounged these for him on my way back through Chandella earlier. They’re stronger than the ones you’re giving him. Will do better on the infection in his shoulder, I should think.” Then he braced David for the next shock of alcohol being poured into the wound, and chuckled when the only thing elicited was a stuporous moan. “Apparently, your friend doesn’t hold his whiskey too well.”