By the Blood of Heroes (5 page)

Chapter Five

FIELD HOSPITAL

B
urke awoke to the scent of blood, vomit, and unwashed bodies. Underneath it all was the smell of lye soap, which, rather than hiding the stench, only seemed to somehow magnify it. That was all he needed to know that he was in the casualty clearing station.

The casualty clearing station, or CCS, was set up in a series of large tents about five miles behind the front lines. If a man’s injuries couldn’t be treated at the front with bandages and simple first aid, he was brought here for more in-depth care and assessment. Those needing immediate surgery received it in a sectioned-off portion of the main hospital tent and were then shipped farther back behind the lines to one of the area hospitals near the larger coastal towns like Boulogne and Calais. Needless to say it was always a busy place, the tents filled to overflowing with the wounded.

Burke had been to the CCS before, not this one but one just like it, and so he knew what to expect. He’d get a few days’ rest, a hot meal or two, and then be sent back to his unit at the front. Which was fine by him; the sooner he was out of here the better. He hated hospitals even more than he hated the enemy, or the Boche, as they were commonly known among the troops.

He opened his eyes to find himself in what passed for a private bedroom at the CCS: a corner bed set off from the others by two walls and a couple of tacked-up blankets. A chair stood in the corner, near a shuttered window. The half-drunk glass of water sitting on the windowsill told him someone had been sitting there recently, waiting for him to wake up.

The blankets gave him some visual privacy but did little to filter out the sounds surrounding him. He could hear men moaning and calling for their mothers, doctors arguing, the endless creak of cot springs under a heavy load, even the far-off whine of a bone saw being prepped for its next victim. All that, combined with the smell of the place, was too much for Burke.

Screw the hot meals. I’ll be better off at the front.

He reached out with his left hand, intending to pull off the thin blanket that covered him, and found himself staring at the newly bandaged stump of his left forearm instead. For a moment he was back in the mud and muck of Ypres earlier in the war, watching in horror as Sergeant Moore brought the machete whistling down toward the unprotected flesh of his forearm, a few inches past the mangled remains of his shambler-bitten hand. Moore’s action had saved his life, had kept infection from spreading through his tissues, but that didn’t lessen the power of the memory. He could hear the mortars going off overhead, could smell the cordite in the air and the mud beneath his feet, could see the grim determination on Charlie’s face . . .

“It’s not what you think.”

Burke jumped. The memory held him in its grip for a moment longer, just enough so he could feel the bite of that shining blade, and then it dissolved like rain and he found himself staring across the room at his sergeant’s smiling face poking through the curtains.

“It’s not?” Burke croaked, not realizing until he tried to speak how parched he was. He waved at the glass on the windowsill and Charlie dutifully retrieved it and helped him take a drink.

“Nah. Graves took it, that’s all.”

Burke cringed. Losing his hand to a shambler for a second time would have been bad, but hearing that the ghoulish Graves had taken it might just be worse.

“Did he say when he was bringing it back?”

Charlie must have sensed what he was thinking for the big man grinned sympathetically. “He’s not. It was too crushed to repair so he’s giving you a new model. I’m supposed to take you down there tomorrow for a fitting.”

Great,
Burke thought
. Can’t wait.

Something about the man’s utter fascination with the undead unnerved Burke, so much so that he only dealt with him when it was absolutely necessary. He much preferred having Graves’s boss, the great inventor Nikola Tesla, handle any maintenance work that might be needed on his mechanical forearm and hand, but this time it seemed he didn’t have a choice.

Graves it was.

Not that he wasn’t thankful for what Tesla and his assistants, Graves included, had done for him. He knew it had been pure luck that Tesla had been there in the field ambulance when he’d been rushed in from the battlefield at Ypres. If they’d brought him in for surgery even ten minutes later, he’d be wearing a brass cap over the end of his stump like so many other wounded soldiers rather than the clockwork arm that had been his constant companion for the last few years. He’d been the next patient scheduled for amputation that day when the inventor had come looking for a human guinea pig. A mechanical arm had sounded better than no arm at all to Burke when the deal was offered and he’d willingly volunteered.

Hopefully this “new model” would stand up better to shambler teeth.

“How bad was it?” Burke asked.

Charlie knew from long experience just what he was asking.

“Eight dead, eleven wounded, including yourself. Other sections of the front were hit at the same time. We threw them back, but just barely.”

Burke nodded. Eight dead wasn’t bad at all, considering what they’d faced, but he still felt responsible. Each of the casualties was another man who wouldn’t be returning home to his wife or family. Each represented a letter he had to write to whoever was waiting at home.

“What about that digging machine or whatever it was? Do we know anything about it?” he asked, to get his mind off the difficult duty that lay ahead.

His staff sergeant shook his head. “Word is that it was a complete surprise; headquarters hadn’t even heard a rumor about its existence. It didn’t stick around to let us check it out either, but bugged out of there shortly after disgorging its cargo. Several men from the Engineer Corps tried to follow it back through the tunnels, but the Boche were smart and collapsed the passage behind them as they retreated.”

“Damn!” It wasn’t what Burke wanted to hear, not by a long shot.

The digging machine worried Burke, and he wondered just how many of them were out there. The enemy could destabilize the entire front with just a couple dozen of them, burrowing underneath the lines and coming up anywhere they wanted, including in the Allies’ rear. That would effectively pin them between a rock and a hard place, and it wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen at that point, with both sets of enemy lines closing in on them like a vise.

And if that wasn’t enough to worry about, there was also that new type of shambler to deal with.

As if reading his mind, Charlie handed him a clipboard. On it was the after-action report form, the same one he was supposed to complete after every engagement with the enemy. Burke had long ago become convinced that if the enemy didn’t kill him, the paperwork would.

“Christ, Charlie,” Burke said. “Can’t it wait?”

“Sorry, sir, but it’s best that you get the details down now, before too much time has passed and you forget ’em.” The big sergeant hesitated for a moment, and then asked, “You going to tell them about the shambler?”

Burke scowled in frustration as he considered the question and the issue it addressed. At last he said, “I’ve never seen a shambler act that way before. Have you?”

Charlie shook his head.

“I don’t see that I have any choice then,” Burke replied.

And he didn’t, not really. Any development that might end the current stalemate and give the enemy a tactical advantage had to be taken seriously. A shambler that acted with foresight and initiative was definitely something that could upset the balance of power. It was bad enough when they behaved like unthinking automatons. But give them intelligence, even at a rudimentary level, and things would get a whole lot more uncomfortable for the troops at the front.

Charlie clapped him on the shoulder. “Leave it with the nurse when you’re done and I’ll swing by later and see to it that it gets filed properly. You need anything else?”

“No, thanks. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As Charlie took his leave, Burke turned his attention to the report before him and began jotting down his preliminary thoughts. There were a lot of details and if he was going to stick his neck out like this, he at least wanted to be certain that he got them right . . .

Chapter Six

OCCUPIED FRANCE

SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF ÉPERNAY

T
he first thing Freeman noticed was the pain.

A white-hot spike of pain poked and prodded at him, like a metaphysical branding iron, jarring him back to consciousness. He knew right away that the pain was coming from his right leg, and the fact that it blocked out any of his other injuries told him that this one was probably more serious than the rest.

The pain wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it let him know that he was still alive, but it certainly wasn’t good either. If he’d been injured too badly to walk, his chances of getting out of occupied territory alive were pretty slim.

Make that zero chance.

He’d deal with that when the time came.

Focus, Freeman. Get out of the wreck, then worry about getting out of occupied France.

Right.

He opened his eyes and looked around, discovering that what was left of his Spad was a dozen feet or so above the ground, crammed between the trunks of several trees. He was still in the cockpit, hanging upside down, held in place only by the thick leather belt bolted to the underside of his wooden chair on the right-hand side and extending up and across his chest to the hook above his left shoulder.

The morning’s events came back to him in a rush. The ambush. The loss of his squadron mates. The long dogfight with Richthofen that had ended with his fateful decision to ram the Baron’s plane. He remembered aiming his mortally wounded aircraft at a nearby copse of trees, hoping the vegetation-laden branches might slow him down enough to keep from being splattered all over the landscape.

Apparently, by some miracle, it had worked.

His arms, hanging limply over his head and down toward the ground, were full of pins and needles. That told him he hadn’t been hanging there very long. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops. Any longer and he wouldn’t have felt them at all, so coming to when he did had probably saved his life. He simply hadn’t had time to bleed to death.

For now,
an inner voice said.

You’ve still got to get down from these trees.

His hands didn’t particularly want to listen to what his brain was telling them, but eventually he managed to reach up high enough to snatch hold of the edge of his cockpit and hold on.

The effort caused fresh spasms of pain to shoot up from his leg, stealing his breath away. He took a minute to steady himself and then got ready for the tricky part.

In order to get out of the plane, he was going to have to release the seat belt and let himself drop to the ground below. He didn’t want to do that until he knew exactly what shape his leg was in.

He was going to have to reach down there and see.

Freeman took a couple of slow, deep breaths, mentally preparing himself. The pain coming up from his leg told him the news wouldn’t be good. All that was left to find out was just how bad it actually was.

When he was ready, he quickly bent forward as far as the strap would allow and ran his right hand down the outside of his leg to a point just past his knee.

He found the problem right away.

The Spad was nothing more than a wooden frame supported by wires and covered with a hardened cloth to help it resist the wind loads that it was subjected to while flying. When it had come down through the trees, the impact had crushed the outer frame and splintered the spars that lined the fuselage. The remains of one of those spars was currently jammed through the meat of his calf, holding him in place.

Just touching it sent a wave of pain and dizziness washing over him. Darkness loomed at the edge of his vision, and he had to lean back and stay still for several long moments while he waited for it to recede.

Breathe, Jack, breathe.

Now that he knew what the problem was he imagined he could feel the blood dripping down his leg, could feel the pressure of the wood against the muscles of his leg, but really, all he could feel was the pain.

There was no doubt about that.

Getting himself free was going to be a bitch.

He couldn’t stay here, that was for sure. He’d gone down in sight of the enemy, which meant they’d send someone out to check on the wreckage, if only to go through it for spare parts or evidence of technological improvements the Central Powers hadn’t come up with yet on their own. His people did it, so he knew theirs would as well. If he could get away from the wreck, he might stand a chance. They wouldn’t expect him to survive the crash and the lack of a body in the wreckage wouldn’t set off any alarms; many pilots didn’t bother with seat belts . . .

So what are you waiting for?

Gingerly touching the inside of his calf let him know that the spar hadn’t gone all the way through his leg. That was good news, but getting himself free was going to be compounded by the downward pull of his body weight. He was going to have to ease the pressure while at the same time sliding his leg free.

Any way you looked at it, it was going to hurt like hell.

Keeping one hand firmly on the edge of the cockpit, he used the other to unwind the scarf he wore around his neck. It had been given to him as a gift from a Frenchwoman he’d met on his last liberty. He couldn’t even remember her name now, but he said a silent thank you to her just the same because her little gift was going to keep him from bleeding to death.

Scarf in hand, he mentally rehearsed the steps he was going to have to take.

Shift his body to the left, using his hands to pull his leg off the jutting piece of wood. Wrap the scarf around the wound to stop the bleeding. Pull up on the cockpit to take his weight off the seat belt. Unhook the belt and drop to the ground below.

Nothing to it.

Now or never, Jack.

He moved his other leg to the left as far as it would go, creating a bit of space between them, then laid the scarf across his thigh where he could get to it quickly.

He took a couple of deep breaths, clenched his teeth tightly shut, then grabbed his leg at the knee with both hands and wrenched it to the left.

He’d thought he’d been in pain before, but that was nothing compared to what he experienced as that jagged piece of wood made its way back through his leg a second time. He could hear it sliding wetly out of his flesh and he couldn’t help himself; he screamed.

“Aaaiiiieeeeee!”

Over the sound of his cry he could hear a faint sucking sound and then he was free.

Sweat poured from him in buckets, and all he wanted to do was let go of it all and sleep, his body desperately wanting to escape somewhere that the pain couldn’t follow, but he knew if he did, he’d never wake up again.

Trembling, Freeman grabbed the scarf, wrapped it once around the wound, twisted the ends together into a knot, and yanked it as tight as he was able.

That did it.

As another wave of pain coursed through him with all the grace of a tsunami, he passed out.

W
hen Freeman came to, he found himself still hanging upside down, held in place by the strap of his seat belt. The belt was stretched taut, supporting all his weight, the pressure on his chest preventing him from taking more than shallow breaths. The pain in his leg had subsided to a pounding throb, and he’d managed not to bleed to death while unconscious, so he considered himself ahead of the game.

A glance at the sun told him he’d been out for a while. It had been off to his right when he’d regained consciousness the first time and now it was almost directly overhead, which meant he’d lost a couple of hours at least. He cursed himself for blacking out. Both sides routinely sent out patrols to check the wreckage in the aftermath of a dogfight. When they could, they’d scratch the pilot’s name into the propeller and send it across the lines, so there wouldn’t be any doubt as to the disposition of the men involved.

He had no doubt that his plane had been recognized by the opposition; the Jack of Spades painted onto the fuselage and the underside of the wings made sure of that. Like Richthofen in his bright red Fokker, Freeman wanted the enemy to know just who it was they were facing when deciding to take him on. A little psychological manipulation never hurt.

That very notoriety, though, would have started to work against him the minute his plane hit the ground. Shooting down the Allies’ top ace was a coup no flier would want stolen from him by the lack of a “credible” witness, so they’d be sure to send someone to the crash site no matter how remote it might be, just to be certain of the kill. Enemy infantry could appear at any moment, and he had no doubt about what would happen to him when they did. If he hoped to live through this, he had to be long gone before they arrived.

So stop hanging around and get the hell out of here!

His subconscious had a point. The belt was a problem, however. To release it, he was going to have to get his weight off it long enough for him to unhook the shoulder strap. Most days that wouldn’t have been an issue, for he was strong enough to support himself one-armed if need be, even in his current position.

But this wasn’t most days.

He was light-headed and felt nauseated, both from blood loss and from hanging upside down all this time, and he kept slipping back down every time he tried to boost himself up high enough to slip the belt off the shoulder hook that held it in place.

After half a dozen tries, he was too exhausted to lift himself.

Fighting back tears of frustration, his gaze fell on the handle of the knife that he routinely carried in his boot, and it suddenly occurred to him that he could just cut himself loose. He cursed himself for not thinking of it in the first place, rather than wasting all that energy. The fact that it took him this long just showed how fuzzy his thinking was getting. The longer he hung here, the worse it was going to get.

Thankfully, the knife was worn on his uninjured leg and it only took him a few tries before he had it in hand. He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, then put the blade against the edge of the belt close to where it disappeared beneath the seat and started sawing back and forth.

The knife was sharp, the belt was tight, and it didn’t take long for him to cut halfway through it. At that point the weight of his body proved to be too much for the worn old leather to bear, and he dropped free of the wreckage as the belt tore the rest of the way through.

He hit the ground with a heavy thud and a muffled scream as he landed on his injured leg. Darkness threatened again, but he fought it off, knowing that if he passed out again, he wouldn’t have any chance at all of escape. Rolling onto his back, he sat up and then scooted himself backward a few feet so that he could lean against the trunk of the tree.

Freeman was surprised but thankful to find that he still held on to the knife. He used it now to slice through the scarf he’d wrapped around his leg earlier and to cut away the remains of his flight suit from midthigh down. He took a couple of deep breaths, steadied himself, and then looked down at the wound in his leg.

In the light of day, it looked particularly ugly, an open mouth gaping in the fleshy part of his calf that oozed blood out of the wound. He could see several wood splinters and a few small scraps of cloth embedded in his wounded flesh, no doubt shoved there by the passage of the broken spar as it forced its way through his leg. He used the tip of his knife to gently remove them one at a time.

His breath was coming in harsh gasps and his hands were shaking by the time he was finished, but the wound was free of any foreign matter.
That was good,
he thought,
for infection could kill him as quickly as anything else.

He opened up the breast pocket of his flight suit and pulled out the first aid kit he kept there. It wasn’t much—a couple of packets of sulfa, a vial of morphine, a few rolls of bandage stored in a small metal tin—but it would handle the chore ahead of him and that was all that mattered.

He put the bandages in his lap and picked up the packet of sulfa. The powdered antibiotic was designed to help keep the wound from getting infected, but he knew from prior experience that using it was no walk in the park.

This is going to hurt.

A lot.

To keep himself from crying out, he picked up a piece of the material he’d cut away from the leg of his flight suit and stuffed it into his mouth. Then he tore open the packet and upended the sulfa into the wound.

Agony.

Blazing liquid agony that ripped through his body like a bolt of lightning. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t think, was, in fact, completely unaware of the way his body arched against the pain, the cords in his neck standing out and his heels drumming involuntarily against the ground. All he could do was scream against the gag in his mouth until at last the pain’s grip began to loosen.

When it did, he spat the gag from his mouth, gasped for air, and looked down to see a bloodstained yellow froth bubbling up from the wound. For all its ghastliness the sight was a welcome one, for it meant that the chemical was doing its job of washing the wound free of any contaminants. It hissed and bubbled for several minutes and then settled to a weak trickle. Once it had, Freeman used the bandage to wrap the wound tight enough to keep it clean but loose enough so as not to cut off circulation.