Redemption - Leon Uris [269]
“Ah, cut it out, Chester, it’s no laughing matter.”
“Then why are you smiling…. Look, you can’t keep from laughing…look at me.”
He got me settled down. He always did. Little bugger.
“What would you like? Godley’s pate, Godley’s frog legs, or Godley’s lamb curry?”
“Godley’s rum.”
Dr. Shurhum suddenly appeared in the opening, a calm number until this moment. I knew from his expression.
“We have the doctor outside. Please, may I bring him in?”
Two of the Ghurka operation assistants led a waxen, zombied Calvin Norman in and sat him on the floor. Dr. Shurhum looked uncomfortably at Chester.
“Lieutenant Goodwood can be trusted with this,” I said quickly.
Shurhum ordered the Ghurkas to stand guard outside. He refused a drink and slowly brought himself under control.
“It had to happen,” the little Nepalese said shakily. “He simply locked up, unable to move his hands, his mind shut off, not knowing us. We had to wrestle him down on the floor, tie his hands behind him, as you can see.”
“We’d better turn him in,” I said.
“No!” Shurhum said pointedly. “It will destroy Dr. Norman’s career. We are fortunate that only he and I were together in the surgery without other physicians at the moment.”
“The doctor is completely shut down,” Chester said. “We can’t hide him.”
“No,” Shurhum said, “I have seen this happen to other surgeons. He will recover after rest, but we cannot send him out as insane. Believe me, gentlemen, I know the Army…particularly when it comes to a colonial. He is a great doctor. This cannot happen to him. I studied under him in India.”
“I’ve got the picture, Dr. Shurhum,” I said.
“What the hell can we do?” Chester wondered.
“I brought him to you because I knew your decision would be the proper one. Please…I tried…every night when we tried to sleep he would go over his mistakes…his sleep was one long scream to be able to transfuse blood.”
“I said I have the picture. Please, give me some time to think.”
“What he was doing was beyond any man’s capacity.”
“I know, Dr. Shurhum. Can you…shut up!”
“He is the greatest surgeon in the Army. He is my teacher. He is my father.”
“Anyone we can trust at Corps?” I asked. “What about Colonel Markham?”
“Markham is a prick,” Chester said. “I don’t see how we can cover this up.”
Message, message, I need a message. Goddamnit, think, Rory…wait a minute…oh, you clever lad…think, think, there we go…
“I can hear you thinking, Rory,” Chester said.
I looked at Norman. He was beyond and away from us all, oblivious.
“We’re going to perform a little surgery on the doctor. Here’s the program,” I said. “He is hit by shrapnel on the beach. I rush him here and send for Dr. Shurhum. Dr. Shurhum certifies that Norman must be evacuated and he’s out of here on the first boat in the morning.”
“But when he arrives in Alexandria and they find no wound?”
“He’s going to have one. You’re going to put it on him right now.”
“Me? How?”
“Cut him, then stitch him up. One across the forehead, one on the side, I don’t know. Wrap his head up in bandages. Stick his arm in a sling…I don’t know. Do it, goddamnit, and we’ll put him in the first boat out in the morning.”
“Look at him. He has no stamina to survive!” Shurhum cried.
“Do it, asshole! And keep him unconscious until the boat pulls out. Wait! Send one of the orderlies with him. We’ll give him a wound, too. Do it!”
Shurhum nodded in accord and snapped an order to one of the Ghurkas outside. He returned in a few moments with the necessary surgical equipment.
I’ve got to say the rest of it went rather well. We put a neat cut on his cheek, like a German dueling scar, and Shurhum opened and closed a grand-looking hole in Norman’s side, although it was hard to pull flesh away from his bones to make the cut. When we finished bandaging him up he looked like he had taken a direct hit from Farting Ferdinand.
Shurhum wrote a report citing the head wound and “a terrible loss of blood.” I put on an addendum taking personal responsibility for the evacuation in lieu of going through regular channels,