Last Salute

by Tracey Richardson

  Pam asked how she could help. A gruff-talking surgeon told her to clamp off the artery in another soldier’s leg while he sewed it back together. She did so and watched the surgeon’s painstaking work even as her back began to ache from standing and bending over the patient.

  It was at least an hour before the urgency plateaued, then dropped, and everyone seemed to take a collective breath. Bloody gowns and gloves were dropped into trash cans. Mops and buckets were pulled out of closets.

  “Thanks for helping out,” Meg said to Pam, looking exhausted.

  “Any time. How many were lost?”

  “Just one. There’s still hope for Ross, the one with the mutilated legs. He’s stable enough to transfer to Bagram. A couple of others are getting ready for transport too.”

  Pam knew well the mixed feelings of losing some but having saved others. It was the saves you had to concentrate on, especially during the moments when the lost ones haunted your thoughts, made you second-guess your actions. “You guys did great work in there.”

  Meg shook her head lightly. “I wish we’d done a little better, but we did what we could. Sometimes…”

  “I know. Sometimes it comes down to needing a miracle.”

  “Yeah. And they’re in short supply in this country. Listen, can you do us one more favor?”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “I know you were going back to Bagram tomorrow anyway, but would you mind going tonight? We need to chopper out these three casualties as soon as we can, and we’re short of flight nurses. Plus they should have a doc onboard anyway. Can you do it? You’ll have a couple of medics with you, but that’s all we can free up right now.”

  Pam didn’t have to think twice about it. She’d help in any way she could. “I’m happy to help, Meg.”

  Meg smiled, touched Pam’s arm lightly. “Thanks. And I’ll get you my friend Logan’s email address. I’ll let her know you’d like to meet her.”

  “You’ve been a great help, Meg. More than you know.”

  Meg squeezed her arm, turned and headed back toward one of the treatment rooms. Pam pulled out her cell phone. She’d felt it buzz in her pocket earlier. She read Trish’s text, pride bringing a grin to her face. Yes, Laura and her comrades had done great work over here, under such physically and emotionally trying circumstances. Naming a new mobile medical unit after her was the ultimate honor, Pam thought with satisfaction. Far more so than a folded flag or a medal.

  Quickly she texted Trish that she would be returning tonight on a medical transfer.

  * * *

  Trish set her phone down, drained her cup of tea.

  “You look like you’ve just won the lottery,” Camille said with raised eyebrows.

  Trish was already thinking about how they’d spend the rest of the night. “Pam. She’s coming back early. Tonight.”

  “You look relieved.”

  “I am. I’m crazy worried. I know no place here is truly safe, but I’ll feel much better having her back on base. With me.”

  “I can see that you love her very much, don’t you?”

  Trish thought about how long she’d loved Pam. Decades. She’d loved her as the kid sister of Laura. They were family. But she marveled at how that love had transformed so quickly from familial to romantic. And how right that transition felt. Maybe, she thought, it was always meant to be this way. That Laura had always been a conduit to finding her future with Pam. Strange how life worked out sometimes.

  “Yes,” Trish said simply. “More than I ever knew was possible. What about you? Have you ever been in love, Camille?”

  It was several moments before Camille answered. “Once.” When clearly it was all she was going to say on the matter, she tipped her near empty cup at Trish in a salute. “You’re lucky to have loved two such wonderful women.”

  Yes, Trish thought. Lucky. Please God, let my luck hold a little longer, until Pam is safely back in my arms.

  * * *

  They were packed into the Black Hawk medevac helicopter like sardines—three casualties laid out on metal fixed stretchers, two medics, Pam, the pilot and co-pilot and a gunner, who kept careful watch from the half-open door of the helicopter. The twin engines were loud, along with the wind rushing through the door—both sources of noise making conversation nearly impossible. Pam hoped like hell one of these casualties didn’t go into cardiac arrest or start bleeding out suddenly. She was a doctor of emergency medicine, but she was at home in a well-equipped, well-staffed trauma room in a modern hospital. Certainly not in an army Black Hawk helicopter, where everything was bolted down, where the sliding metal stretchers were stacked one on top of the other, and where you couldn’t turn around without knocking your elbows or knees or head into something or someone.

  She looked down at her patient, who was still a patient in need of advanced medical care, no matter what his surroundings. She marveled at the fact that a soldier could be badly injured in the field and within an hour be diagnosed via X-ray, MRI or CT scan and be on an operating table. It was no wonder the mortality rate of soldiers in the First and Second World Wars was so high, when it could be hours or even days before they received any sort of expert help. Today, the mortality rate for soldiers injured in the field was exceptionally low, all things considered. If a casualty made it alive to a base hospital, he or she was likely to stay that way.

  Ross—she still didn’t know if it was his first or last name—opened his eyes and stared at her with what looked like a mix of awe and panic. He had an oxygen mask over his face.

  Pam bent close to him. “It’s okay,” she yelled over the din. “You’re going to be all right, Ross. You’re on your way to Bagram, where they’ll take good care of you.”

  The fingers of his good hand moved, first in a tremble, then more frantically, as though he were signaling something. He moaned too, like he was trying to speak through his oxygen mask.

  “What is it, Ross?”

  He moved his hand in a motion of holding a pen and writing.

  Pam asked the medic across from her for a piece of paper and a pen, and he quickly supplied both from a cargo pocket in his uniform. Carefully she placed the pen in Ross’s left hand, held the small pad of paper for him.

  My legs?

  Pam knew they were a lost cause. They were heavily bandaged, and most of his body was covered with a thermal blanket to help keep him from going into shock. She simply shook her head. There was no sense in shielding him from the truth. If it were her, she would want to know.

  Tears pooled in his eyes. He looked away for a long moment, probably trying to envision what a future might look like without legs, without being whole for however long remained of his life.

  “You’re alive,” Pam said simply. “That’s what you have to focus on now, okay?” She’d treated patients before who’d lost limbs in terrible accidents. She knew what the shock and devastation of it meant, the stages of denial and disbelief, helplessness, and finally, acceptance.

  He looked back at her, nodded slightly. He began to write again on the paper, in ragged block letters.

  Baby. Soon. Wife.

  “Your wife’s having a baby?”

  He nodded. His eyes brightened.

  “Then you have a lot to live for, Ross.”

  He nodded again, looking momentarily pleased.

  Moments after he’d drifted off to sleep, Pam too began to feel exhaustion seeping into her. Physically, she’d not done anything strenuous on her short trip to Kandahar. Mentally, it was a different story. She wished she could nod off too, but too many images and memories floated through her mind—the doe-eyed little girl in the pink housecoat, the blood of the soldiers as they were rushed into the trauma rooms, the methodical but hurried actions of the medical staff, the controlled tension in their voices. She supposed they got used to this sort of on-again, off-again chaotic maelstrom, much as she did working in a hospital emergency room. But the danger here felt so much riper, so close, as though it might reach out and snare everyon
e all at once. Any feelings of safety and security were fleeting and certainly not to be taken for granted, Pam had quickly realized. Every moment of being alive was a blessing.

  It was pitch-black through the tiny windows, but she could sense that the helicopter was descending. They ought to be close to the Bagram base now, probably only minutes away, she guessed.

  “Fuck!” It was the pilot or co-pilot, she wasn’t sure which.

  The gunner a few feet away from her echoed the same epithet. He dropped to his knees, braced himself, pointed his heavy automatic weapon through the half-opened door toward the ground, though how he could ever find a target in the blackness, she had no idea.

  “What is it?” Pam shouted, her heart thundering in her chest like a herd of galloping horses.

  And then she heard what the others must have. Firecrackers, although of course they weren’t firecrackers. Something hard and metallic pinged off the roof above her. Another ping hit the outside of the door next to her.

  “We’re going dark,” somebody from the cockpit shouted, and in an instant, all of the helicopter’s internal and external lights blinked off.

  Pam tried to settle her heartbeat, then her voice. “We’re okay,” she said to Ross as he stirred in his stretcher. One of the earliest bedside manner rules she’d learned was to make the patient feel calm, as though events around them were under control, even when they weren’t.

  “Motherfuckers!” the gunner said through his clenched jaw before he began firing off rounds. It was a staccato crack-crack-crack in bursts of ten or twenty, Pam couldn’t be sure exactly how many rounds he was letting loose, but each burst made her jump. She’d never been near gunfire before.

  More clunks and metallic pings rang off the helicopter’s outer shell. There was no doubt in her mind that they were being fired at. Everything about the helicopter, even the glass, was bulletproof, she’d been told before. It could withstand rocket attacks too, apparently. It was a veritable fortress with rotor blades, she’d been led to believe, and she hoped like hell it was true.

  The Black Hawk suddenly jerked hard to the left. Pam sucked in her breath, the damned wild horses active again in her chest. It banked to the right in a dodging move, except now one of its engines began making a high-pitched screeching noise. There was a faint smell of smoke. Alarms from the cockpit were sounding, the ominous bleating giving Pam more reasons to quietly freak out. Everything tensed in her body, adrenaline and fear gushing through her in waves. She felt slightly nauseous and dizzy.

  Fuck, this can’t be happening. We can’t go down. We cannot go down, goddammit!

  “We’ve got to set this bird down!” the pilot yelled. “We’ve been hit. We’re not going to make it to the base.”

  Okay, focus, she told herself. Focus and function through the fear. You can do this.

  She glanced at the medic across from her. He nodded and blinked reassuringly at her. They were all in this together, and they were all going to be okay, she decided. It was the only outcome possible, she truly believed. She’d found love, she’d found the happiness she’d been searching for all her life. It would not end this soon. It would not! Laura, God rest her soul, was her angel now. Laura would help her. Laura had to help her.

  The helicopter bounced along, as though there were giant potholes in the air. One of its engines had gone silent, the other was struggling, she could tell.

  Had Laura panicked silently inside when her helicopter was going down? Had she been brave on the outside, as Pam was now? Trying not to show fear, when inside, she recited a list of regrets she didn’t know she had? Pam couldn’t help but compare her situation to Laura’s, as unbelievable as it all was.

  Ross was squeezing her hand, pulling her out of her morbid reflections. She looked at him. He smiled beneath his oxygen mask. Her heart rate began to settle, her body relaxing a little. There was a baby to look forward to for Ross. Trish was waiting for her just a few miles away. It was going to be okay.

  They bumped along through the air, Pam wishing she could see how far they were from the ground. At least she couldn’t hear any more firecrackers and things pinging off the helicopter. The gunner had stopped firing and settled back in his seat for the landing.

  “Landing hard in thirty seconds,” the pilot yelled.

  Pam double-checked the tension in her seat belt, then checked the straps keeping Ross on his stretcher. They were both ready.

  They hit ground in two hard thumps. Then everything stopped. The engine noise, everything.

  Without a word, the gunner released his belt and quickly slid the door fully open, his weapon in the ready position. One of the two medics had retrieved a rifle from under his seat and followed him out. The pilot and co-pilot were still in the cockpit, shutting things down, radioing somebody—hopefully somebody at Bagram, Pam prayed.

  The remaining medic told Pam to stay where she was and look after the patients. “We’re going to set up a guard perimeter outside the helicopter while we wait for help.”

  Pam swallowed. “Is help coming?”

  “Yup. We’re only four miles from the base. They have our coordinates and they’re on the way.”

  Oh, thank God! Pam squeezed her eyes shut and gave silent thanks. A few minutes and they’d be rescued. She felt giddy with relief. “Hear that Ross? Help is on the way.”

  * * *

  Trish knew something was wrong as the wait on the tarmac stretched out. Camille was with her, and they both kept scanning the dark sky for the incoming Black Hawk.

  “Shouldn’t it have been here by now?” Trish asked impatiently. She knew the answer; Pam’s helicopter was at least ten minutes overdue.

  Camille gave her some feeble excuses, but it was useless. Something was wrong. She could feel it in her gut—a cold, clenching feeling—and she shuddered.

  “I need to find out,” Trish implored. “Please, Camille. Find out what’s wrong.”

  Camille nodded. Trish could see in her eyes that she thought something was wrong too. She turned on her heel and hurried away, leaving Trish shivering in the hot night air. Please, she said under her breath over and over again. Come back to me, Pam. Come back to me. Please. She wanted to cry, but didn’t. If Pam was in trouble, she didn’t need a blubbering, emotionally crippled girlfriend. She’d need her to be strong.

  Camille returned with the colonel from the base hospital. They both looked solemn, and Trish’s stress level spiked another notch.

  “Please tell me what’s wrong,” she said. No point in pretending everything was going according to plan.

  Colonel Davidson sighed, concern creasing his forehead. “Their helicopter came under attack just a few miles from here. It wasn’t a serious attack, just small arms, but it did enough damage that they had to set down.”

  Trish’s stomach tightened, the word “attack” echoing in her mind. Jesus, Pam had come under attack? How could that be? She was a civilian, for God’s sake. This wasn’t her war. She was supposed to be observing, not getting involved in anything like being fired at.

  Trish’s anger shot to the surface. Her jaw felt like steel. “How could this happen, Colonel?”

  He blinked at the question. “It’s generally a pretty safe route the choppers take back and forth. There hasn’t been an incident in months.” His brown eyes softened considerably. “I’m sorry, but these things can be unpredictable.”

  “Where are they now? Is Pam okay?”

  “A convoy of armored vehicles is leaving the base now to retrieve them. There were no injuries in the attack.” He flashed a quick look at Camille, and in that instant, Trish realized that Pam was still in danger.

  She kept her voice steady. “What are you not telling me, Colonel?”

  “The situation is under control, Ms. Tomlinson. They’ll set up an armed perimeter around the chopper until help arrives, which should only be another twenty minutes or so.”

  Twenty minutes! The longest twenty minutes of my life, Trish thought ruefully. If they made it through
this ordeal, she would make damned sure they got the next flight out of this God-forsaken place. She steadied her voice. “If they were fired at, it means there are enemies in the area, right?”

  “That’s a possibility, yes, but we’re putting a couple of Apache choppers in the air as we speak. They’ll fly over and scare off any insurgents. As far as these things go…” He smiled for the first time. “This one’s pretty good.”

  Camille nodded assurance, and Trish’s relief was instant. “Can I go on the convoy to retrieve them?”

  “Afraid not,” the colonel said, not unexpectedly.

  Camille turned to Trish. “C’mon. It’ll probably be close to an hour before they’re back. Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

  Trish scanned the inky, empty sky one last time. It was going to be okay. It had to be.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The bumpy ride back to base in the armored vehicle was quiet; nobody spoke, and that was fine with Pam. She needed time with her thoughts, needed to come down from the adrenaline high of coming under attack and having to crash-land in the desert. The fear hadn’t paralyzed her, but it had shaken her badly. She couldn’t let Trish see her like this. She hadn’t come as close to death as she’d initially imagined. It was nothing as dramatic as what Laura had encountered in her death, she was sure, and she needed to get a grip. She was okay, and so was Trish.

  Pam closed her eyes, lulled by the rattling of the mammoth vehicle and its diesel engine. She wanted to contribute, wanted to help in a meaningful way, but not here in a war zone. She wasn’t cut out to handle the futility, the volatile highs and lows, the feeling of living a parallel life out here that was so different from the way people lived back home. It was no wonder that soldiers returning home had trouble adjusting. Maybe that’s why Laura never came home for long. Staying in a war zone for as often and for as long as she could meant she didn’t have to try to live a normal life. Maybe there was some comfort in that for Laura, but it couldn’t have been healthy for her, Pam decided.