10
I ran into the dip.
Charlie wasn’t moving, but Bastard was. He was out of sight, but I could hear him pushing deeper into the pines.
I grabbed the RPK and squeezed the bipod legs together to release them. I gave them a tug as I got to the top of the rise and they sprang apart. The barrel supported, I dropped to the ground, pushed safety fully down, and squeezed off a series of short sharp bursts in the direction of the noise. My ears were ringing when I stopped. Smoke curled from the muzzle.
No screams, no begging. F*ck him. I scrambled back down to where Charlie lay on his back in the mud and pine needles, so still he could have been sleeping. I knelt over him and cradled his head, and immediately felt warm liquid on my hands. He was making an ominous, slurping noise each time he drew breath.
I unzipped his Gore-Tex and tore at the hole in his shirt. Blood trickled down my hands. He had a sucking wound. The .357 round had drilled a hole in his chest, just below his right nipple. As he breathed in, oxygen had rushed to fill the vacuum in his thoracic cavity, and the pressure had collapsed his lungs. As he breathed out, air and blood were forced out like air and water from a whale’s blowhole.
‘Nearly stepped on the f*cker . . .’ Charlie coughed blood. ‘I couldn’t pull the trigger, Nick . . .’ He tried to laugh. ‘F*cking disco hands . . .’
His body twitched. He was in agony, but the crazy thing was, he was smiling.
But if he was talking, he was breathing – that was all that mattered.
I grabbed his hand and placed it over the entry site. ‘Plug it, mate.’
He nodded. He wasn’t that out of it yet; he understood what needed to be done. With his chest airtight, his lungs would inflate and normal breathing could resume.
‘Got to check for exit wounds, mate. It’s going to hurt.’
I rolled him onto his side, but there wasn’t so much as a scratch on his back. The round must still be in him. A heavy round like that could only have been stopped by bone – maybe his shoulder blade – but a fracture was the least of his problems. We both knew he was in deep trouble.
Charlie began to groan. ‘How’s it look? How’s it look?’
Over and over.
He’d be going into shock soon. I had to act fast, but what could I do? He needed fluids, he needed a chest drain, he needed the wound sealed; he needed the whole f*cking cast of ER up here.
He groaned again.
Still no need to worry about his airway.
His hand had fallen from his chest. I put the heel of my mine over the hole to keep the seal. He coughed again, and the effort sent him into spasms of pain.
‘How’s it look? How’s it look?’
His face contorted – another good sign. He could still feel it, his senses hadn’t deserted him.
I needed to get him down to the wagon, and I needed to keep the seal while I did so. I’d have to drive back to the village. The guy we’d lifted the RPK from had been standing in the doorway of what looked like a medical station – and the BDUs would have brought trauma packs.
We’d be arrested, but so what? I’d said I’d get the old f*cker home, and I would.
‘How’s it look?’
‘Shut up, and think life.’
There was nothing up here I could use to keep the seal, apart from my hand. How the f*ck was I going to do that while I got him down the hill?
Bastard would be heading there too. He knew we hadn’t come here by bus. But he wasn’t going anywhere fast. I’d deal with him once Charlie was safe.
I looked down at Charlie’s face. It was swelling like a football.
‘F*ck, f*ck, f*ck!’
I lifted my hand.
There was a hiss, like air escaping from the valve of a car tyre, and a geyser of blood mist.
The round had certainly gone through one of his lungs, maybe both. Oxygen was being released into the chest cavity through any wounds. With me holding the seal, it had nowhere to go. The pressure in his chest had built so much that when he tried to breathe in, his lungs and heart had no way to expand.
I pulled him over onto his right side; blood that had pooled inside the lung poured out like milk from an overturned bottle.
I rolled him back and sealed the hole again.
He was losing consciousness.