CHAPTER FIVE
But the next day was nothing like we had planned.
From the moment I awoke in the early dawn I felt something was not right.
Loud shouting traveled with the fog that seeped down from the hills into the central area of the huts, and roused many from their beds in dazed confusion Rachel and me among them.
We dressed in a frenzy and stumbled out to the porch to see Makian men run from the square into the hills where the ruckus seemed to be coming, and getting louder—and closer. We met Greg, Tom, and Dameon on the porch of the medical hut—the air electric with tension.
“Another attack. Border’s been breached,” Tom informed us, still zipping up his cargo vest and tying his hiking boots. “There’ll likely be wounded out near the edge. Guess it’s a good thing we left the field hospital set up.”
“Dameon and I will go with you,” Greg said, as he strode into the hut. I followed and began helping pack supplies into the bins to load in one of the Rovers—gauze, bandages, morphine, antiseptic.
“You’ll need help,” I said, “I’m coming with you.”
“No, I don’t want you out there. It’s too close to where the fighting has been,” he said, not looking up from his task.
“If it’s dangerous, I don’t want you going out there, either!”
“I’ve already been,” he said, as our eyes met. “Besides, I’ll need you here in case someone makes it back and needs help.”
As if on cue, a young Makian warrior shuffled into the room holding a comrade up by the midsection. His shirt was soaked with blood, dripping down his bare leg and onto the floor.
“Good, God” I whispered under my breath, the argument I was about to give Greg died on my lips.
Rachel showed up behind them asking questions in the jerky Tok Pisin, but the young soldier spoke English.
“There are more wounded,” he said.
I looked at Greg. “Go! I’ve got this.”
He and Dameon carried out the plastic bins while I guided the young Makian warrior onto the table.
I switched on the overhead light, casting the corners of the room into shadow as well as flooding my patient in a white glow.
He shrieked as we lay him down, and I saw why.
Blood pooled around a smooth stick that had perforated just to the left of his belly button.
I ripped at the hole in the bloody tunic, slipped it over the stick, and forgot to don gloves until that moment.
“Sid,” it was Greg’s voice. Coming back into the room, he placed a walkie-talkie on the shelf behind me. “We’ll try to stay in contact.” He clenched his jaw, and bore a deep look into my eyes.
“Be careful,” I said, a bit more demanding than I intended.
He grabbed me with one arm, the other holding the last bin of supplies and kissed my temple. “I’ll see you tonight.”
And then he was gone.
No time to dwell on the incessant fear that pressed itself at the base of my skull. I snapped into action, and grabbed angrily for a few pieces of gauze to soak up the blood. My patient was hyperventilating.
“Can you get him to calm down?” I shouted at the young man who brought him in. “Does he speak English?” The young warrior nodded, looking pale and weary. “Put pressure here,” I told him.
Wiping blood off my hands on a nearby towel, I snapped on gloves, and stuck my patient with a morphine shot. Now settled, I told the other young man he was free to go, to his obvious relief.
The stick looked as if it had been broken off near the base of the wound. It stuck out a good three inches from his flesh. Knowing arrows were the preferred weapon of the Hundi tribe, I was certain there was an arrowhead on the other side—I’d never removed an arrow from a body.
I had extracted bullets before, and come to think of it now, arrow wounds could often be more deadly than a gunshot, largely because a bullet was more likely to pass through the body, or could sometimes be left in to be encased in bone or tissue.
Arrowheads were sharp and would continue to injure and inflame the tissue around them.
I had to remove it. But if it had pierced the pancreas, kidney, or the small intestines—he would be dead in each case.
Finding the calm within the chaos of my thoughts as I usually did in these circumstances, I made a quick decision and began the examination by probing around the bones of the hip and ribs.
If it was lodged into bone, it would be much more difficult to extract, but it looked to have stuck in the soft tissue of the abdomen—thankfully.
I grabbed a kit that included a suture set and a scalpel and opened the wound around the arrow with a small cut on either side, widening it for extraction.
While my patient was still knocked out from the morphine, I inserted my finger into the hole, and probed for the arrowhead.
I could just make out the shape of one of the ridged sides with a gloved finger and slowly twisted the arrow with my other hand, careful to wrap my inserted finger around the sharp edge to keep it from causing more internal damage.
Then after a small, continuous twist with a bit of pulling pressure, I gently dislodged the arrow which made a slushy pop sound.
I used my finger in the wound to keep the pressure on the puncture, but I had no way of knowing and no way of finding out if there was internal bleeding.
Afterwards, I cleaned the wound with wet gauze, allowing it to dry and the blood to clot—which was a good sign the bleeding had stopped.
I would either get lucky, or I wouldn’t, and everything in me said the young man would probably die by the end of the day from internal bleeding, or by the end of the week from infection.
After suturing and bandaging my still sleeping patient, I noticed it was only 7:53 a.m.—something told me it was going to be a long day.
I kept a close watch on the hills. After the fog had dissipated, it was replaced by the sultry air that kept my t-shirt plastered to my chest. I skipped breakfast, and chose instead to stay close to my patient who, thankfully, hadn’t fevered in the past few hours.
Maybe I would get lucky and he would live after all.
I walked the four-foot expanse of the porch, back and forth.
The day’s earlier adrenaline rush made it difficult to focus on anything else.
“They always come back,” Rachel said, emerging from the door of the hut. “This is the third or fourth time it’s happened, and they always come back.” She leaned against the rough wood, fanning herself with her shirt.
“I know. I’m just…” What was I? Worried? Anxious? Angry I had to stay? Jealous I wasn’t there? Frustrated the trip wasn’t turning out the way I had expected? All of the above.
“When did things become so violent? I’m sure the mission would’ve sent a bigger team if they had known the extent of the attacks,” I said—more accusatory than I intended. I needed someone to blame and Rachel was a close target.
“A month or two before Greg and Dameon got here.” I noted the edge in her voice. She had definitely picked up on my tone. “That’s when the Hundi stopped attending the meetings. The attacks started after that.”
Why did I always feel on edge around Rachel?
We mixed about as well as oil and water, probably because we were too similar.
Two type-A females on the same team, one with obvious territorial issues, the other with…
control issues. I could feel the flush of irritation rising up my neck and hoped Rachel didn’t notice.
I sometimes broke out uncontrollably in a reddening blush of rosacea when I couldn’t find words or speak my mind, years of learning to push things down.
But the telltale rash showed up as clear as day on my white skin and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
I turned my back to deal with my trigger and regain composure.
“You’re lucky, you know?” Rachel’s voice was only mildly condescending.
“Why’s that?” I said, my back still turned.
“He’s a passionate man, Greg. I mean…he puts his whole heart into what he does. I’ve never seen anyone care so much about a group of people. It’s always been part of the job, for me, so I try not to get too attached. But he’s made deeper connections in a month than I have in a year.”
Turning around, I said, “That’s Greg—he wears his heart on his sleeve.”
“He loves you…and any man as passionate as that has got to make his woman feel loved,” Rachel said.
Yeah, but he’s selfish, slow to make decisions, and cares too much what others think.
I shook my head and looked at Rachel, her jet-black hair pulled into a tight bun on the top of her head.
There was a comfortable silence, void of the previous tension and I felt the unspoken olive branch and ventured to offer my own.
“Are you married, or have a family?”
“Divorced.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Nah, don’t be,” Rachel said, sitting on the bench that sat right outside the door. “He was a piece of shit, and I cheated on him. Wasn’t meant to last.” She shrugged.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but thankfully didn’t have to decide. A small group of Makian women came chatting around the corner, carrying their large plastic water containers. One of them shouted up to Rachel and she shot back a jerky reply.
“It’s a water-filling day,” she said. “I’ll take the water jugs for the hut and get them refilled, so I’ll be gone most of the day. The truck can only hold so many going back and forth from the well.”
Rachel joined the group with her own water containers and they loaded up like sardines in the back of the small truck that shuttled back and forth from the fresh water well supplied by the New Guinean government.
I let out a sigh and checked my watch—12:30 p.m. Still no word from Greg.
My stomach flipped with hunger, so I rummaged around in the hut and produced some stale bread and peanut butter, and washed it down with a bottle of water. I went to check on my patient, happy to find him awake and still not fevering.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. I looked underneath the bandage to find the skin red and swollen.