Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [25]
Laying the corporal on the grass—an ancient-looking fellow, with a leather face and grizzled hair, one hand clutching his stomach—Younger strode toward the girl, who drew back a step instinctively. He passed her without a glance and opened the truck’s door. Inside he saw two things that surprised him. The first was a boy, no more than eight, sitting in the rear of the cabin, reading a book in the shadows. The second was a complex radiological apparatus, complete with a large glass plate, heavy curtains, and gas ampoules.
Younger turned to the girl. “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked in French.
“What?”
“Where’s the man who operates this X-ray machine?”
“I operate it,” she answered in English.
He looked her up and down: “You’re one of Madame Curie’s girls.”
“Yes.”
“Well, get to work. Unless you want this corporal to die.”
“It’s pointless,” she said. “There’s no surgeon. They’re all gone.”
“Just make him ready by nightfall.” Younger went to the corporal, said a few low words in the man’s ear, and disappeared into the woods the way he had come.
The moon had risen when Younger returned. He found the encampment as it had been that morning: intact but deserted. One of the tents was illuminated by electric light. The truck was parked next to it, engine on, a set of cables running from the vehicle along the ground into the tent. The girl was using the truck’s motor for power.
Younger lifted the tent’s flap and walked in. All was prepared. The old corporal, whose name was Dubeney, lay asleep on an operating table, face washed, hair combed. Instruments were neatly laid out. Basins of water were at hand. The girl rose from a chair. The little boy was at her feet, still reading. Without a word, she retrieved a set of radiograms and mathematical computations, which she handed to Younger.
He held up the plates to one of the bare electric bulbs. Against a background of white bones and grayish viscera, small black dots and balls stood out with remarkable clarity. When a man took shot in the gut, the greatest danger was not organ damage; it was blood poisoning. In the old days, recovering every fragment of shot was virtually hopeless, and the man was likely to die. With a good set of radiograms, properly computed, any competent surgeon could save him.
Younger washed his hands, wrists, face, and forearms. He took a long time at it, rinsing the dirt and blood from his mind as well as his skin. Meanwhile the girl applied more chloroform to Corporal Dubeney, who pushed at her hands ineffectually until slipping off again. Younger set to work, the silence broken only by his requests for instruments and, a short time after his incision was made, the occasional plank of a metal fragment dropping into a ceramic bowl.
Sweat began to form on Younger’s brow.
“Wait,” said the girl in English. It was the first word she had spoken.
While he held his knife aloft, she mopped his brow, then applied the cloth to his cheeks, his jaw, his neck. Younger gazed down at her delicate but serious features. She didn’t once look into his eyes.
“What was in the bag?” asked Younger.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You threw the soldiers a bag.”
“Oh. Just groceries. Cheese, mostly. They don’t get enough food; they’re all hungry. Like a band of mice.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That they should be killing Germans instead of bothering a French girl.”
Younger, nodding, returned to his patient. “We say mischief.”
The girl frowned as she rinsed the soiled cloth.
“In English,” he said, “it’s a ‘mischief ’ of mice. Was it Madame Curie herself who trained you?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“What did you think of her?”
Her reply was immediate: “She’s the noblest woman alive.”
“Ah, an admirer. Personally, I’m surprised they allow it.”
“What do you mean?”
“An adultress, after all, training young girls—”
“She did not commit adultery,” said the girl sharply.