What do I do?
Take this rag with your free hand, here. Dunk it and get it good and wet. Now. Wherever I point, thats where I want you to squeeze the water out to clear the blood away, so I can see. You understand?
I understand, he said without sounding one bit happy about it.
Outside, somewhere beyond the small dark tent, two enormous things collided with a crash that outdid all the artillery. Mercy could picture them, two great automatons made for war, waging war against each other because nothing else on earth could stop either one of them.
She forced herself to focus on the shrapnel that came out of the colonel in shards, chunks, and flecks. There was no tin pan handy, so she dropped the bloody scraps down to the dirt beside her feet, directing George Chase to aim the light over here, please, or no-farther that way. Occasionally the colonel would whimper in his sleep, even as numb with unconsciousness as he was. Mercy had kept the ether bottle handy just in case, but he never awakened enough to require it. Still she tweezed, pricked, pulled, and tugged the metal from his neck and shoulder. Nothing short of a miracle held his major arteries intact.
An explosion shook the tent, illuminating it from outside, as if the sun were high instead of the moon. Mercy cringed and waited for the percussion to pass, waited for her ears to pop and her hands to stop shaking.
Down, then. Down his shoulder, to his chest and his ribs.
Never mind whats happening outside, on the other side of a cotton tent that wouldnt stop a good thunderstorm, much less a hail of bullets-and the bullets were raining sideways, from every direction. Men were yelling and orders were flying. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away, two monstrous machines grappled with each other for their lives, and for the lives of their nations. Mercy could hear it-and it was amazing, and horrifying, and a million other things that she could not process, not while she had this piece of bleeding meat soaking through his cot. Somehow over the din she detected a soft, rhythmic splashing, and realized that his blood had finally pooled straight through the spot where he slept, and it was dribbling down on her shoes.
She did not say, Hell never make it. All of this is for show. Hell be dead by morning. But the longer she kept herself from saying it, the less inclined she was to think it-and the more focused she became on the task at hand, and her borrowed tweezers, and the quivering raw steak beneath her fingers.
When shed
removed everything that could reasonably be removed (which probably left half as much again buried down in the muscles, somewhere), she dried him and wrapped him from head to torso in the doctors last clean bandages, and showed George Chase how to use the opium powders and tinctures that the good doctor had left behind.
As far as Mercy could tell, the colonel had stopped bleeding-either because hed run out of blood, or because he was beginning to stabilize. Either way, there wasnt much else she could do, and she told George so. Then she said, Now, youve got to keep him clean and comfortable, and make him take as much water as hell swallow. Hes going to need all the water you can get inside him.
George nodded intensely, with such earnest vigor that Mercy figured hed be taking notes if hed had a pencil present.
Finally, she said, I wish him and you the very best, but I cant stay here. I was on my way to Fort Chattanooga when my dirigible . . . well, it didnt precisely crash.
How does a dirigible not precisely crash? he asked.
Lets just say that it landed unwillingly, and well ahead of schedule.
Ah. Hmm. He pulled his small wire-rimmed glasses off his nose and wiped at them with the tail of his shirt, which probably didnt clean them any. But when he replaced them, he said, Youll need to catch the rails, over in Cleveland. Were not far. Probably not a mile.
Can you point me that way? Ive got a pretty good sense of direction; I can walk a straight line, even in the middle of the night, if I can trouble you for one of your lanterns.
George Case looked aghast. Maam, we certainly cant allow anything like that! I wish you could stay and lend us a hand, but weve already sent for another surgeon and hell be here within the night. Ill call back Jensen, or somebody else. Well get you a horse, and a guard.
I dont need a guard. Im not entirely sure I need a horse.
He waved his hand; it flapped like a birds wing as he rose and went to the tents panel, pushing it open. Well see you to the rail yards, maam. Well send you there with our thanks for your time and ministrations.
She was too tired to argue, so she just pushed her camp stool back away from the cot and cracked her fingers. As you like, she said.
As he liked, two horses were swiftly saddled. Jensen rode one while Mercy rode the other, away from the camp and into the trees once more, between the trunks, between the bullets that sometimes whipped loosely past, having flown too far to do much but plunk against the wood. The roar of battle was still loud, but fading into the background. She could see, in hints and flashes, the two giant monsters wrestling, falling, and swinging.