Beyond Valor

by Lindsay McKenna

  A snapping sound passed close to her right ear.

  Gasping, she realized the enemy up on the slopes was firing down at them. She leaped outside the house and hit the deck, spread-eagled, bringing the rifle up to a firing position. Winking yellow spots could be seen up on the mountain slope. A terrible sense of vulnerability rushed through her. They were like fish in a barrel.

  Men bellowed orders and she could hear the roar of a howitzer spitting out shell after shell toward their attackers. Her ears hurt from the artillery. In seconds, the shells hit, the sides of the mountain lighting up with red, yellow and orange arms of fire exploding into the night sky.

  Within minutes, the attack was over. Megan slowly got to her feet and stood outside the door. The darkness was complete. How did the men see in this gloom? Night goggles would solve the problem, but none had been issued to her. Marines muttered and cursed around her. She wondered if any of the men had been wounded, Megan scrambled to her feet, took her rifle inside, grabbed her medical bag and ran toward Headquarters.

  She bumped into another Marine near the doorway. There was a small light to drive away the gloom. Captain Hall’s face was grim, eyes angry.

  “Sir, is anyone wounded?” she called.

  “Not this time. Go back to your assigned house.”

  Nodding, Megan moved out of the way as Sergeant Payne strode into the small house. Heart thundering in her chest, Megan left the noise of the radios and the chatter behind. What time was it? She lifted her watch, the radium dials showing 3:00 a.m. Groaning, Megan stepped carefully, her eyes unable to adjust to the darkness. Without a moon to guide her, she felt her way forward with her boots. In one area, she suddenly pitched forward. Landing with a thud, Megan realized she’d fallen into a crater created by an enemy grenade. She got to her knees and searched blindly for her medical pack. After grabbing it, she climbed out of the crater. Oh, for a flashlight! Megan knew that would be impossible. A light would simply draw the fire and attention of their enemy. Moving slowly and deliberately, Megan finally got to her assigned house.

  Inside, she found Luke and another soldier, Lance Davis.

  “You guys all right?” she called to them.

  “Fine,” Lance answered. “Pissed off the bastards woke us up in the middle of the night, but that’s what they do best.”

  Luke was relieved to hear Megan’s voice. He moved toward the door where she stood. “You were supposed to stay here. What happened?”

  She could barely see the outline of his face and helmet even though he was a few feet away. “I couldn’t hide, Luke. It’s my job to see if anyone is wounded.”

  “You haven’t been given egress training or an assigned position if we’re attacked,” he told her in a censuring tone. “You should have stayed here.”

  “I don’t have time when the enemy is going to lob grenades into our compound,” she said in a cool tone. Shouldering by him, she found her cot. She sat down and placed her weapon in the corner. She heard Payne’s soft Kentucky voice even though she didn’t see him enter the house.

  “Ya’ll okay?”

  “Everyone’s fine, Buck,” Luke said.

  Buck grunted. “We’re puttin’ out extra guards. Davis, get your rifle and get over to the south tower. Keep Johnson company. You’ll be relieved in three hours.”

  Lance cursed softly. “Just when I thought I was going to get a decent night’s sleep.”

  Buck chuckled. “Now, you know they ain’t gonna let that happen. Get going.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help, Sergeant Payne?” Megan called out in the darkness after Lance left.

  “No, Sweet Pea, you just lie down and get as much beauty sleep as you can before we get reveille at 0600.”

  Under ordinary circumstances, Megan would have called the sergeant on the way he’d responded to her. It wasn’t military; it was personal. Her heart was still beating with fear and she felt shaky. Luke was pissed off at her for leaving the house. What did he expect? Lying down, hands behind her head, she closed her eyes. “Sergeant, I want that egress training as soon as possible,” she called out. “And a pair of night goggles.”

  “Yep, I hear you. After chow tomorrow morning, I’ll get you squared away.”

  “Good,” Megan muttered. She sounded like a petulant child, but that’s how she felt. “Do these attacks happen often?” she asked no one in particular.

  “The last company said al-Qaeda was very active during the dark of the moon,” Buck Payne drawled. “And this is the first night of the new moon, so I ’spect we can get more attacks in the next six days. Just means we sleep in our Kevlar vests.”

  Groaning, Megan laid her arm across her eyes. “Great.”

  “Welcome to our world,” Payne said.

  “Really,” Megan muttered.

  “Combat isn’t pretty. We’re sittin’ ducks out here with mountains surrounding the compound. The enemy can use us as moving targets any time they want. Cap’n Hall is madder than a wet hen and he’s already ordering up huntin’ parties tomorrow morning.”

  “Hunting parties?” Megan asked. “What’s that?”

  “It means me and the other sergeants will be taking out squads of Marines to go up into the slopes of that mountain where the fire came from, find the bastards and put out their lights.”

  Megan said nothing. “Luke? Will you be going with them?”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “You’ll be in my squad,” Buck told him.

  “Can I go?”

  “Sorry, Sweet Pea, but you’re confined to the village only.”

  “But,” she protested, “I’m a medic! I was stationed at a forward medical facility in Iraq and we got shelled at and shot at all the time.”

  “Megan, give it up,” Luke pleaded. “Hall’s not going to change his mind and let you go out with a patrol. Let’s try and get some sleep.”

  * * *

  Megan was starved when she woke up two hours later. The Marines around her were stirring, too. Dull light shone through the only window in the house. It gave her enough light to find her boots. Sitting up, she noticed Luke was gone, along with Sergeant Payne. Despite the adrenaline rush and fear of the attack, Megan was surprised she’d dropped off to sleep so quickly. She felt wide awake.

  “Good morning,” she called to Lance Davis, who entered.

  “It will be when I can get over to the chow hall and get a cup of coffee,” he said.

  Smiling a little, she asked, “How did it go out there last night?”

  “Boring as usual. It was quiet. Sergeant Payne was telling us that the last company here had the Taliban try to sneak in and they slit the throat of one of the Marines on guard.”

  “That’s terrible,” Megan said, chilled.

  Lance nodded. “Yeah, the dude lived. That’s the good news. Let’s go eat,” he said.

  Though she’d lost some of her appetite, she walked with the lanky Marine across the chewed-up compound. In the dawn light she spotted the crater she’d fallen into last night, along with several others. A bulldozer was already pushing dirt to fill them in. Shivering in the cold, she kept up with Davis.

  Luke was just leaving the chow line to find a place to eat when he spotted Megan with Davis. He waved to them and found a table with two other empty seats. His heart swelled with joy as he saw Megan. At the same time, Luke felt dread for her. She’d seen some combat in Iraq. Did she realize that one of those grenade launchers could have flattened one of the mud houses within the compound? Every time the enemy attacked, the possibility of people dying was very real. He couldn’t protect her completely, as much as he wanted to.

  He could see the tension on her face.

  Within a few minutes, Davis and Megan arrived at the table. They sat down opposite him. Luke
tried to ignore Megan’s soft red hair framing her face. She was like a bright flower among the sea of camouflage desert colors. Her tray had little food in comparison to theirs.

  “First combat?” Luke asked her.

  “No. We were shelled in Iraq about once a week.” She shrugged. “It was scary as hell last night. I couldn’t see a thing.”

  Davis laughed. “That’s why bunkers beneath the ground are great. Harder to target us and we have light.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said with distaste, pushing the scrambled eggs onto his fork, “you forgot to mention how dank and airless those pits are. You can’t sleep.”

  Megan slathered jelly on her toast. Her stomach was tied in a hard knot. She still felt shaky but wasn’t going to admit it. She forced herself to eat. Food was fuel. And today, she was going to open the women’s clinic in the village at 0800.

  “How are you doing?” Luke asked, meeting and holding her gaze. Her face was ashen. Yesterday, Megan’s cheeks had been rosy. Now there was darkness banked in her blue eyes. Luke caught a slight tremble in her fingers as she scooped up some eggs.

  “I’m okay,” Megan lied. “A little tired.”

  “You look pretty pale,” Luke said in a quiet tone.

  Megan shrugged. “Lack of sleep.” She glanced over at Davis, who was chowing down as if there were no tomorrow. “You guys don’t exactly look like GQ candidates, either.” She managed a sour grin.

  “Maybe it’s your Trayhern military genes kicking in to help you deal with combat?” Luke wondered.

  Megan forced the food down, trying not to be swayed by the burning look in Luke’s hazel gaze. He cared for her, she could tell. Did anyone else see it? “I hope so.”

  “At Camp Pendleton,” Davis said, “did they put you gals in live-fire situations?”

  “No.”

  “Pity,” Davis said. “They did us. We had to crawl under barbed wire with real bullets flying above our heads and blasts going off on the sides of us. Sure got you acclimated to what you were going to see out in the field.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Megan griped. She picked up a third piece of toast and finished off the grape jelly across it.

  “No live fire?” Luke said, shaking his head.

  “No.”

  “Last night had to shake you up, then.”

  “No more than you guys.” Megan wasn’t about to implicate herself.

  “Hmm.”

  “How can you see in the dark?” she demanded of Luke. “I felt blind as a bat.”

  “You get so you place your stuff where you can reach it in case of an attack,” he told her, wiping his plate clean. “Tonight you’ll put your boots near the head of your cot with the Kevlar hung across them and the helmet on top. That way, when we get bombed again, all you have to do is roll to your left, grab and go.”

  It made good sense. “I’ve got a lot to learn.”

  “Don’t worry,” Luke reassured her, “you did fine last night.”

  “I didn’t panic.”

  “No, you didn’t. But when we’re under attack, I have to take my position at the clinic next to HQ. I didn’t want to leave you there alone, but nothing else could be done.”

  Megan drowned in his worried gaze. “That’s okay. I understand. I’m sure the sergeant will show me the ropes this morning so I know where to go next time we get attacked.”

  “He will,” Davis answered. “There’s only one place for medics, and that’s at our clinic. You’ll be there with Luke.”

  Megan felt good about that. She said nothing, however. “Where will you be today?” she asked Luke.

  “Out with the patrol,” he said.

  “I’ll be at the village, safe and sound.” There was irony in her tone. She worried for Luke and the rest of the Marines who would be out as a hunter team trying to find the elusive enemy on the mountain slopes.

  “It’s not a secure village,” Luke warned her. “Just because Mina is helping you doesn’t guarantee that a Taliban or al-Qaeda soldier won’t walk into that village, hunt you down and put a gun to your head, Megan. You have to remain on guard at all times. Do you understand?”

  A chill of fear went through her. “Yes, I’ll stay on guard.”

  * * *

  Megan couldn’t believe her eyes as Shorty drove the Humvee up to the women’s clinic. At least fifty women and children were standing patiently in line waiting for the door to open. Mina came down the steps, smiling a welcome. After thanking Shorty, Megan climbed out and retrieved her rifle and medical pack. He got out and opened a side door where boxes of supplies had to be carried into the clinic. Since he was a man, he couldn’t do it.

  “Mina, can the widows come over here and take the supplies into the clinic?”

  “Of course.” Mina signaled to the four women in black burkas to help.

  Megan had no time to think about last night’s attack. She had set up two examination rooms. Twenty women and children crowded into the waiting room. The others waited outside in the chill of the morning. Mina was astute and got the four widows to become her helpers. Once the supplies were in the building, Megan had one widow, Aryana, put the dressings, bandages and other medical supplies in one room. In another, Mina had brought over a large wooden cabinet where all the drugs and antibiotics would be kept under lock and key. Megan assigned Rabia, a thirty-five-year-old widow, the responsibility for the cabinet.

  The house had no central heat. Later, Megan discovered a small stove in the kitchen, but that heat didn’t transfer to the rest of the building. With cold fingers, she put a stethoscope across her neck. She shed the Kevlar vest and put it with her helmet and rifle in the kitchen. Megan worked with Lona, the third widow, who would perform the secretarial duties. Lona sat at a dilapidated-looking front desk near the door. She would write down the name of each patient and her complaints, then give the patient a number. When the number was called, the patient would go to one of the exam rooms.

  Mina’s managerial abilities made the coordination easy for Megan. Within thirty minutes, she was ready to see her first patient. A young mother of twenty brought in a two-month-old baby girl in her arms. Megan took the baby and gently laid her on the gurney covered with a thick, warm blanket. She talked to the mother while listening to the baby’s heart and lungs, and it was clear the child had pneumonia. Megan wrote a prescription, telling the mother to keep her baby warm and out of cold drafts. The mother’s green eyes teared up. This was her first child and she was so afraid of losing her. Megan patted the woman on the shoulder and asked her to return with the baby in three days.

  Megan was surprised when the woman threw her arms around her, squeezed her and tearfully whispered a thank-you. Inwardly, Megan lived for these moments. She returned the young woman’s embrace and picked up her baby and handed her to the mother.

  Mina came into the second examination room. “It’s time to eat,” she called to Megan. “When you’re done, let’s go to my home.”

  “Right.” Megan looked up. Where had time gone? To her surprise, she’d become so immersed in her duties that she’d completely forgotten her lack of sleep or the attack. She heard Lona announcing to those waiting that Megan must eat before helping the rest of them this afternoon.

  “So, how is it going?” Mina asked her a few moments later in the warm kitchen of her home. She served Megan a plate filled with spicy lamb, couscous and some goat yogurt.

  Megan sat at the kitchen table. “Good. Really better than I thought it would. Those four widows are a force to behold. Your ability to manage really makes the difference, Mina.” Megan took the mouthwatering plate.

  Laughing lightly, Mina filled her own plate and came to sit down opposite her. “Since I am the leader’s wife, management comes easily to me.”

  “You’re very good at it,” Megan said between bites. The flavor of sp
ices mixed with curry made the lamb delicious. The kitchen swam in the fragrance of many spices, and Megan inhaled the wonderful odors.

  “You’re very fast and very good with my people,” Mina said. “I’m hearing from those who saw you that you are very gentle and kind with them. Thank you.”

  Meeting the woman’s gaze, Megan nodded. “I think I’ve lived for this moment all my life, Mina. All I’ve ever wanted to do was help those in need.”

  “You are a healer, not a warrior.”

  Megan smiled and nodded. “I wish we could find a better way to settle our differences than with war. Three children I saw this morning all had a leg blown off by an IED. There’s got to be a better way.”

  “Indeed.”

  Frustrated, Megan added, “I’m going to talk to Luke tonight. He’s got connections. I want to try and get prostheses for these three little girls. They shouldn’t be going around on a pair of crutches.”

  “That would be wonderful if you could help,” Mina said, suddenly tearing up. She reached out and gripped Megan’s hand. “The other Marine company wouldn’t do anything like what you’re suggesting.”

  “That’s why the idea of embedding a woman into an all-male company is a good idea.”

  “It truly is,” Mina said. “It’s a blessing and a prayer coming true. You have no idea how many nights I’ve lain awake crying for these children, crying for those who have so little. I am just devastated by the constant suffering of these people.”

  “I’m beginning to understand,” Megan said in a quiet voice. She picked up a cup of hot tea and sipped from it. “I’m in shock myself. I didn’t understand how little they have.” Her voice became firm. “I promise you, Mina, while I’m here, I’ll do everything I can to help them.”

  “And yet they have the heart of a snow leopard. They subsist, they struggle, they battle the cold and the snow. And somehow, they survive things I never would. I have nothing but admiration for them.”