Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [104]
"I can't afford to lose the remaining motion in my arm. Clean the hole as best you can without opening it any further, without tearing the muscle any more."
"Mr. Cray, I am better with a knife than even you, believe it or not," Holenbein said magisterially. Like all Berliners, he knew Cray's name. "So kindly do not tell me how to practice medicine. You need a general anesthesia, and a full probing and abrading of your wound."
Cray said, "Doctor, I'm leaving your office in three minutes. Do you have a bottle washer?"
"Pardon?"
"Do I have the wrong phrase in German?" Cray asked Katrin. "A long wire with bristles all around at the end, used to clean the inside of a bottle."
"A bottle washer?" Then the doctor's eyes grew small with understanding and amusement. "You cannot be as badly wounded as I had supposed, making such a jest."
"Get a bottle washer," Cray ordered
"I have them here." Holenbein lifted a wire bristle brush from a drawer under an autoclave "For test tubes and beakers.
"What do you have to kill germs on a wound?" Cray asked. "Alcohol is all I have due to the shortages."
"Dip the brush into the alcohol."
Dr Holenbein opened a jar of rubbing alcohol. "I'm going to enjoy this little spectacle. I only hope your friend here," he nodded toward Katrin, "will help me lift you from the floor, where you will fall senseless from the pain." He dipped the brush into the fluid, and brought it up again, the bristles dripping. He held it out.
"Americans don't use anesthesia." Cray glanced at Katrin, his eyes alight. "We view it as a European indulgence."
Cray took the brush by the handle, and held it up his wounded arm. He stared at the raw wound a moment, his jaw tight, the humor gone from him. Then he rammed the brush into the wound, through the wound, so that bloody bristles popped out under his arm.
Katrin thought she could see his fist shake, could see his jaw tremble. Cray plumbed the wound, just as if he were cleaning a rifle barrel. In and out went the brush, carrying clotted and tresh blood and bits of tissue and damp ash. Katrin studied him, looking for signs of pain or distress. His mouth pulled back, but only a little Nothing more.
The American passed back the bottle brush. His words were serrated by pain. "Sew it up."
Katrin said flatly, "You are an exhibitionist." Cray suddenly sagged to one side but caught himself on the operating table. He pushed himself back to his feet. He blinked rapidly, his teeth sunk into his lower lip. He held out his arm again. "Sew it up." Dr Holenbem clucked his tongue. He lifted a needle and a vein of silk thread. "I'm impressed, even if she's not." He pulled the silk through the needle's eye. "You won't need anesthesia for the stitching either, I would imagine."
The room suddenly filled with glass and bits of plaster and splinters of wood, thrown about as if in a high wind. Jack Cray tackled Katrin and drove her to the floor before the sounds of the shots registered on her. A machine gun, two machine guns, outside the surgery's window. Cray was on top of her, then he was crawling toward the surgery's back door, dragging her across the floor like a flour sack. Beakers shattered. A wheelchair against a wall skipped about. Pockmarks raced across the wall opposite the window, then back again. Fractured cabinet doors flew open. Dr. Holenbein fell to the floor, his trunk almost severed by bullets, blood spilling from him.
Cray grabbed a fistful of Katrin's dress and yanked her upright, still tugging her toward the rear of the room, between the medicine sideboard and the X-ray machine and into the back hall.
He released her. "Through the door."
In one hand was his pistol, and the knife had appeared in the other. The top half of the office's rear door was a frosted panel of glass. Cray shot twice through it, the sound sharp in the small hall. Then he shot two more times through the wood panel below. He threw the latch. He rushed out and she followed.
Slumping to one side was a Gestapo agent, two of Cray's bullets in him. Cray leaped down the steps and fired