Chapter 15

“Yes, I’m afraid that we’ll have to triage these. Too far gone and they’re enemy besides. Orders are orders,” Anne decided, still not feeling great about the idea.

She never did, that much I knew. For that much, for all of our callous talk about the foe, even though they were despicable racist scum, it was against my instincts and my medical ethics to be too comfortable letting anyone die. I could be a cold, heartless bastard sometimes, but it wasn’t my default setting by any means.

“Alright, guys. Keep ‘em comfortable ‘til they pass. Hell will be rough enough for them,” Dr. Singh said loudly enough for the wounded to overhear.

“The only Hell at all is on Earth, and we’re smack dab in the middle of it. Just my take, you know. That old saying is wrong. There ARE some atheists in foxholes. Well, not literally a foxhole in my case. More like a hospital. Still, yes, we’ll be rid of ‘em soon enough. No need for torture,” I commented, just as Major Courtney Slade entered the hospital.

“Listen up! I have an announcement. The Klan has surrendered. Well, what’s left of them. We took about six hundred forty odd prisoners. The rest chose to fall where they stood. Sadly, they killed more than a few of us, but you already know that, not even counting the ones that they wounded.

“This engagement is over. We’ll be relocating you guys to a better hospital by the end of tomorrow. You’ll need it, because there are also plenty of injured civilians and the regular docs can’t handle ‘em all,” the regimental XO informed us in very blunt language.

“Yes, ma’am,” we all answered her.

What else was there to do? I went back to work for now, though in better spirits. The Battle of Winston-Salem might be over, but plenty of folks still needed suturing, blood pressure, fever, pulse, all those things still needed handling. Morphine drips still had to be replaced. Yes, it was a grueling pace, but that was what I signed up for, right? Once I got out of the Militia and got my nursing license back for civilian work, I’d never gripe half as much about the emergency room, not after being a field nurse in a war zone.

“Excuse me, but are you Ralph Walker, ex-husband to Megan Coleman? The widow of Clifford Coleman?” someone with JAG insignia, surrounded by two MPs, asked me now to confirm my identity.

“Second Lieutenant Ralph Henry Walker at your service, sir, or should I call you Captain?” I asked the obvious military lawyer.

“Very well. Come with me,” that wasn’t a request.

“You are?” I asked him now.

“Captain Juan Gomez, Judge Advocate General’s Corps. We need your testimony in the matter of your ex-wife, who was apparently something of a civilian worker and camp follower for the Klan, thanks to her late second husband, Clifford Coleman. Did you know that he held the rank of Klensign in the Klan forces? That’s roughly the same rank as you. Equivalent to a butterbar like yourself. Second lieutenant or what the Russians would call junior lieutenant.

“All ranks in the Klan chain of command began with the capitalized ‘K’ followed by the lower case ‘l,’ it seems. Except for Imperial Dragon and Imperial Wizard. Klivate instead of private. Klorporal instead of corporal. Klergeant instead of sergeant. Then Klensign, Klieutenant, then Klaptain, Klajor, Klolonel, Kligadier, Kleneral, and Klarshal. After that, they dropped off the ‘Kl’ and just had Imperial Dragon, the deputy commander, that is, followed by the Imperial Wizard, the rank of the supreme commander.

“Are you prepared to testify regarding the case of your ex-wife or shall we be forced to compel your testimony, Lieutenant Walker? Either way, you’re giving testimony, or you will face a general court-martial for insubordination and obstruction of justice. I don’t think that I have to explain to you the ramifications of a court-martial, do I, Lieutenant?” Captain Gomez made it plain that he was prepared to be a hardass if necessary.

It wouldn’t be necessary, of course. I was more than happy to testify, though I wished that it didn’t come at the expense of my patients. I would tell them exactly what I recommended. It wouldn’t be quite as harsh as I led Megan and even myself to believe, but it would still be rough. Someone had to provide medical care to those sent to the salvaging work in DC.