The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [36]
"But the practice of medicine predisposes one to certain cynicism, especially military medicine. You know, they give this test to all novice field medics. Say that you get three wounded men: one with a belly wound, one with a serious thigh wound – open break, blood loss, shock, the works – and one with a glancing shoulder wound. You can only operate one at a time, so where do you start? Surely, all novices say, it's the belly wound. No, says the examiner. While you're busy with him, and it's nine out of ten that he's going to die anyway, the guy with the thigh wound will get complications and will at least lose his leg, and most likely die, too. So you have to start with the most serious wound among those who have a decent chance of survival – in our case, the thigh wound. As for the belly wound, well… give the man an analgesic and leave him to the One's will. To a normal person this must seem cynical and cruel, but at war you can only choose between bad and worse, so this is the only way. It was only in Barad-Dur that we could talk nicely, over tea and jam, about how every human life is invaluable…"
"Something doesn't add up here. If all your considerations are eminently practical, why did you carry the baron and risked the whole team, rather than administering the 'strike of mercy'?"
"Where's the contradiction? It's plainly obvious that you have to help your comrade to the hilt, even at the greatest risk: you save him today, he'll save you tomorrow. As for the 'strike of mercy', don't worry – were it necessary, we would've done it in the best form… It used to be better in the old times, when wars were declared in advance, didn't involve peasants, and a wounded man could simply surrender. Too bad that we weren't born then, but no inhabitant of those glass-house times can cast a stone at us."
"A beautiful exposition, Field Medic, sir, but I suspect that you'd ask the sergeant to do the 'strike of mercy'. No? All right then, another question, again about practical logic. Have you considered that a leading physiologist sitting in Barad-Dur and studying antidotes professionally could save a lot more lives than a field medic?"
"Of course I've considered it. It's just that – sometimes there are situations when a man has to do an obviously stupid thing just to retain his self-respect."
"Even if this self-respect is ultimately bought with others' lives?"
"Well… I'm not sure. After all, the One may have His own ideas about that."
"So you make the decision, but the One bears responsibility for it? Wonderful! Haven't you told the same thing to Kumai in almost the exact same words I've just used? Remember? You had no chance, of course – once a Troll decides something, that's the end of it. "We may not sit out the battle which will decide the fate of the Motherland" – and so an excellent mechanic becomes an army engineer, Second Class. A truly priceless acquisition for the South Army! In the meantime it seems to you that Sonya is looking at you strangely: sure, her brother is fighting at the front while her bridegroom is cutting up rabbits at the University like there's not a war on. So then you can think of nothing better than to follow Kumai (truly it is said that stupidity is contagious), so that the girl is bereft of both brother and bridegroom. Am I right?"
For some time Haladdin stared at the flames dancing over the coals (strange thing: the fire keeps burning, although the nazgúl doesn't seem to be adding any wood). He had the distinct feeling of having been exposed in something untoward. What the hell!
"In other words, doctor, your head is a total mess, if you pardon the expression. You can make decisions, no question about that, but can't complete a single logical construct; rather, you slide into emotionalism. However, in our case this is actually not bad."
"What's not bad?"
"You see, should you decide to accept my proposition, you will thereby take on an opponent