Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [70]
That fact was all right with him.
The other SEALS were already organized and had set up a moving security perimeter, traveling quickly along the alley to put distance between themselves and the shooters above. At least, they moved until the lieutenant grunted quietly and brought them up short.
“You okay, LT?” asked Harry Teal.
“My shoulder—I think I busted it,” Jackson said. “They hit me with some kind of cannon as I was going over the wall.”
Another wave of pain shot through him, and he bent at the waist, retching, bracing himself against the building with his good hand. Teal gave him a shoulder to lean on and helped him slump down heavily onto the wet ground.
“Let me have a look, sir,” the corpsman said.
“Dammit, we have to move! You can look at it when we’re clear.”
“Sir!” Teal insisted, startling the officer with the intensity of his challenge. “I need to examine you now! Then we can move.”
“Shit,” Jackson said wearily, giving up. He looked around at the concerned faces of his Teammates, which were pale and grimy in the shadowy confines. “Anybody else hurt?” he asked gruffly.
“I got a nick in the leg. Flesh wound,” Sanchez said with a shrug.
“Check him out first. That’s an order!” the officer said as Teal started to probe his shoulder.
“I already put a Band-Aid on Sanchez’s boo-boo,” Teal said. “So, Lieutenant, I guess it’s your turn.”
Wincing and gritting his teeth, Jackson grunted acknowledgment and leaned his head back against the cold stone of the wall. He felt the mud soaking his trousers, but he was too groggy and too wracked with pain to care. It was a relief to sit down, to take the load off his feet, and to let the wet ground and the solid stone at his back support him.
The corpsman probed the joint, apologizing at Jackson’s hiss of pain. Trying to ignore his ministrations, Jackson took a look around. He saw Sanchez leaning on Marannis’s shoulder with a bloody bandage wrapped around his thigh. “Christ, did you get it in the artery?” he demanded.
“No, sir. Just a little nick, like I said,” the SEALS scout replied. “Bled like a son of a bitch for a few seconds till Harry wrapped it up nice and tight. Hell, sir, I could do wind sprints right now. Want to see?”
Jackson couldn’t help but laugh, heartened by the man’s—by all the men’s—fighting spirit. “Nah, save the energy,” he said. “I’ll send you on a beer run as soon as Harry finishes with me.”
After a few seconds, Teal squatted back on his haunches. “Looks like it’s dislocated,” he said. “I’m going to pop it back in, sir. But it’s gonna hurt like hell.”
“Do it,” the lieutenant grunted, closing his eyes.
He was vaguely aware of a couple of other men gathering around. Someone’s big hands took a grip around his chest in response to whispered instructions from the corpsman. A stab of pain shot through him as he felt Teal manipulate his dangling arm, then take a grip on his bicep.
“Ready, sir,” the corpsman said. “On three. One—”
Before saying “two” and allowing his patient to tense up, the young SEALS pulled on the arm, twisting it up and out, forcing the joint back into place. Jackson croaked out a cry of pain and blacked out.
When he came to, he was walking, being helped along by the strapping LaRue. Somehow, even unconscious, Jackson had been moving his feet, and now he shook his head, groggily looking around. Daylight was that strip of blue sky far overhead, with looming stone walls to the right and left, flanking an alley that was only some six or eight meters across.
Doesn’t the sun ever set in this fucking place? He wanted to snarl the question at everyone, at anyone, in earshot. But he wouldn’t give in to that frustration. Instead, he grunted a more practical question: “Any sign of pursuit?”
“Not yet, sir,” LaRue replied. “They didn’t follow us over the wall. But they have to know we’re down here.”
“Then let’s keep moving.”