Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [60]
The battle, at last, was over.
An hour later, all of the bodies, French and American, had been found and accounted for. At least those bodies that could be found.
The French had lost four men to the killer whales, the Americans, one. Eight other French commandos and two more US Marines – Hollywood and Ratman – had been found in various locations around the ice station. They had all been confirmed dead.
The Americans also had two wounded, both quite seriously. Mother, who had lost one of her legs to the killer whale, and, rather surprisingly, Augustine ‘Samurai’ Lau, the very first Marine to have been gunned down by the French.
Mother was faring better than Samurai. Since her wound was a localised one – confined to the lower extremity of her left leg – she was still conscious. In fact, she still had full movement in all of her other limbs. The flow of blood from the wound had been stopped and the methadone took care of what pain there was. The only enemy that remained was shock. As such, it was decided that Mother would remain in her storeroom on E-deck, under constant supervision. To move her might trigger a fit.
Samurai, on the other hand, was in a much worse state. He was in a self-induced coma, his stomach having been ripped to shreds by Latissier’s barrage of gunfire at the very beginning of the battle.
The young Marine’s body had responded to the sudden trauma in the only way it knew how – it had switched itself off. At the time they found him alive, Schofield had marvelled at the ability of the human body to take care of itself in the face of such extreme crisis. No amount of methadone or morphine could have quelled the pain of that many gunshot wounds. So Samurai’s body had done the next best thing: it had simply turned off its sensory apparatus and was now awaiting external help.
The problem was whether or not Schofield could provide that external help.
Anything greater than basic medical knowledge is rare in a front-line unit. The closest thing such units have to a doctor is the team medic, who is usually a low-level corporal. Legs Lane had been Schofield’s medic, and he was now deader than dead.
Schofield walked quickly around the A-deck catwalk. He’d just come up from E-deck where he had checked on Mother, and he was now wearing a new pair of silver anti-flash glasses. Mother had given them to him. She’d said that in her state, she wouldn’t be needing them anymore.
Schofield poked his head around the dining room door. ‘What do you think, Rebound?’ he said.
Inside the dining room, Rebound was working feverishly over Samurai’s inanimate body. The body lay flat on its back on a table in the centre of the room. Blood dripped off the edges of the table, forming a red puddle on the cold porcelain floor.
Rebound looked up from what he was doing. He shook his head in exasperation.
‘I can’t keep up with the blood loss,’ he said to Schofield. ‘There’s just too much internal damage. His whole gut’s been blown apart.’
Rebound wiped his forehead. A slick of blood appeared above his eyes. He looked hard at Schofield. ‘This is way out of my league, sir. He needs someone who knows what he’s doing. He needs a doctor.’
Schofield stared at Samurai’s prone body for a few seconds.
‘Just do what you can,’ he said, and then he left the room.
‘Okay, people, listen up,’ Schofield said. ‘We don’t have much time, so I’m going to keep this short.’
The six remaining able-bodied Marines were gathered around the pool on E-deck. They all stood in a wide circle. Schofield stood in the middle.
Schofield’s voice echoed up through the shaft of the empty station. ‘This station is obviously a lot hotter than we originally thought. I’m thinking that if the French were willing to take a chance to grab it, others will, too. And whoever those others might be, by now they’ve had some time to get their shit together and prepare for a full-scale attack. Have no doubt, people, if anyone else decides to hit this station they will almost certainly be better prepared and more heavily armed than