by James Harden
Exit Strategy.
For about a nano-second I freaked out. I did not want to die in an air strike.
But once I reasoned with myself and came to the conclusion that I could either curl up into a little ball and wait for the inevitable or at least try and make a run for it, I was unnaturally calm.
We decided to carry the pilots out. To hell with their injuries. If we didn’t get them out they were going to die anyway.
Drake kicked out the front wall of the nearest hut. It was made of ply wood. Using the wood we made a makeshift stretcher. We basically piled up the pilot and the co-pilot on top of each other. It wasn’t safe or supportive but it was the best we could do.
I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes.
Drake and I slowly picked up the stretcher, taking care to keep the piece of wood flat and even so the pilots didn’t fall off. Once we had a good grip on each end of the make-shift stretcher we began running as fast as we could.
Unfortunately, our top speed wasn’t very fast.
It was slow going. And the twisting, narrow lanes of the slum weren’t making it any easier. To make matters worse, every couple of minutes we would hear some gunshots close by. We were forced to put the stretcher down and take up defensive positions in case we needed to return fire. And the further we moved through the slum, the thicker the smoke from the fires became. I started to cough and choke. It was hard to breathe, hard to see through watering eyes.
We finally made it back to the wider laneways, the area where we had been dropped off earlier that afternoon.
We scanned the street up and down. Amazingly at the very far end of the laneway was a vehicle. I couldn’t tell what it was because it had its head lights on. But it had to be one of ours, I thought. Who the hell else would it be?
We gingerly set the pilots down on the ground. Drake flashed the torch on his rifle on and then off. He repeated this multiple times. The vehicle then flashed its high beams at us and began driving slowly down the laneway in our direction. It was a Humvee.
I checked my watch. We had ten minutes until midnight, ten minutes until the bombs started dropping.
I had no idea what these guys were still doing here at this late stage. Maybe they were hanging back for us? Maybe they were waiting until the last possible second to clear out?
Whatever the reason, we owe them our lives.
We picked up the stretcher once more and picked up the pace.
The sporadic gunfire continued to erupt and echo throughout the dark slum. Somehow we had managed to avoid whoever was doing the shooting so far. I guess it was just sheer luck. If we had turned down a different laneway who knows what might’ve happened? We were really in no position to get into a fire fight.
The Humvee finally made it to us.
It was a medical Humvee. The driver and the medic confirmed they had been waiting for us. But they had no idea where we were and had no way to reach us because the massive vehicle wouldn’t fit through the narrow laneways. And all radio frequencies were jammed up.
They were just about to leave before they saw us.
It was a stroke of good luck. But there was no time to celebrate.
We lifted the co-pilot and the pilot into the back of the Humvee, making sure they were secure.
Off in the distance we could hear howling and screaming. The strange noises were getting closer.
More gunfire erupted, coming from all around us. I was the last to climb into the rear of the Humvee. I was just about to close the door when I heard fast, running footsteps, like someone was sprinting towards us. I turned around and saw a small child charging at us. I tried to shut the back door but the kid jammed his body into the doorway.
Drake reached over from behind me to help shut it.
The doctor was yelling at us. “Close it! The child is infected! Close it!”
And all of a sudden I’m reminded of that small child from that isolated village in the Hindu Kush mountain range we tried to help.
Drake kicked the boy in the chest, trying to push him back. But the kid didn’t budge. He was snapping his teeth furiously, chipping and cracking them in the process.
Outside someone started shooting as us. Bullets smashed into the armored doors of the Humvee.
The boy had been shot. Drake managed to finally kick him back and we were able to slam the door shut.
Drake fell back into the cabin of the medivac. His leg was covered in blood. He had been shot and bitten.
He was in bad shape.
“Drake, are you all right?”
He was swearing and looking at his leg, like he was afraid of it, like he was trying to back up away from it.
He kept swearing. He kept saying no. Over and over.
No. God. No.
“Drake, snap out of it. We made it. You’re gonna be all right. We’re going to the hospital right now. You and the pilots. You’re all going to be fine.”
The doctor was working frantically on the co-pilot, strapping him in, making sure he was secure so he wouldn’t fall out of his stretcher.
The doctor’s hands were shaking.
“Are you all right, man?” I asked
“We got less than five minutes,” he answered. “If we’re not out of here we’re going up in flames.”
I looked at my watch as I coughed uncontrollably. I couldn’t really focus my eyes. I must’ve inhaled way more smoke than I thought.
Less than five minutes.
The doctor told me to sit back and strap in. He slipped an oxygen mask over my mouth. He said that I’d inhaled a dangerous amount of smoke. And judging by the materials in this slum, it was probably toxic. So I needed as much clean oxygen in my lungs as possible.
“Just breathe,” he said. “In and out.”
Inhale. Exhale.
As soon as he said this I started to feel weird. The fumes had gone to my head. I was still coughing.
Outside the Humvee I could hear screaming and howling. Like a wolf.
The doctor then jabbed a needle into Drake’s leg. He inspected the bullet wound and bandaged it up. He told him to sit back as he pulled an oxygen mask over his head.
He told me to hold on. Keep an eye on the guys. It was going to be a bumpy ride.
The doctor jumped up front to the passenger seat and strapped in. He yelled at the driver to go faster. “Step on it!”
The Humvee picked up speed.
Drake was staring at his leg. “Kenji. You gotta help me."
I knew what he meant. But I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
“I’m bitten,” he said “I’m infected.”
“We don’t know that,” I said, desperately trying to fight the obvious.
“Yeah we do. You get bitten, you get infected. Simple as that. Please, Kenji.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you’re fine. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“Look at me!”
Flak jackets. Armor. Gloves. This is why we were ordered to wear them.
“Please, Kenji. I don’t want to turn into one of those things.”
He begged me. Pleaded with me.
But I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t even look at him.
I couldn’t.
I unstrapped myself from my seat and fumbled around in one of the medical kits.
I gave him another shot of morphine. Drake is usually terrified of needles. Terrified to the point where he passes out whenever he’s about to get a shot or a vaccination injection. But at that point in time, he didn’t notice the needle.
He didn’t even flinch when it punctured his skin.
His breathing began to slow.
I told him it was going to be all right even though I knew that it was not. I told him I was sorry. Sorry for everything. I told him that it was an honor to have served with him.
I readjusted the oxygen mask on his face, making sure it was nice and secure.
As the morphine and the oxygen warmed and calmed him down he began to slip into what I knew would be a dreamless sleep.
We were in bad shape. Drake had lost a lot of blood. I had inhaled a lot of smoke.
The Humvee continued to pick up speed as we raced the clock. Somewhere off in the night sky were the approaching jets. F16 falcons. Or maybe A10 warthogs. They were on their way. They would not wait for us.
