Page 6 of The Long Walk Back

‘He’s fine. Safe. You saved him.’ She was looking at me like I was a hero. It was… new.

‘Hightower okay?’

Kate laughed. ‘He’s good. Tried to take down half the staff to get to you. I’ll make sure he knows you’re awake. How’s your pain?’

‘Can’t feel a thing.’ She didn’t look too pleased about that, but I brushed it off. ‘When can I get back to duty?’

Her face fell, and she looked down at our hands. I pulled mine away then, and she let it go without a fight.

‘Dr Trevor Tanner is going to come and talk to you soon, on his rounds.’

I grunted in annoyance. ‘I’m not some idiot, missy. I just want to know when.’

She raised her chin at me then, her face hardening a little. ‘First of all, I’m not “missy”, I’m Dr Kate Harper. I’m an orthopaedic surgeon attached to your unit and several others, and as I said, Dr Tanner, my superior, is going to come and speak to you on rounds…’ She checked her watch. ‘…Which started half an hour ago. I need to go, I’ll come and check on you soon.’

She stood up and strode off haughtily. I laughed at her swagger. This one was a real ball buster, I could tell. I could have been nicer to her. The thought of her sleeping with her hand holding mine clouded my thoughts. I had no time for anything that wasn’t getting back to my unit. I was Captain Cooper, not Mr Hearts and Flowers. She was a medic, she patched people like me up and sent them back out there. Still, winding her up gave me something. A distraction from being in this bed.

‘Okay, Missy,’ I shouted after her, chuckling. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’

I sniggered again as she made a ‘humpf’ sound, her nose pointing at the air furiously as she sped up her stomp. My whole body screamed at me for laughing, but it was so worth it.

Trevor was doing his rounds when she found him, and she could tell from his face that they had had a good night. A good night here was when they still had the same number alive as the day before. A great day was when there were no casualties at all, but sometimes the team was hard pushed to remember many days like that.

‘Captain Cooper thinks he is hilarious. I’m just waiting for him to call me “toots” and slap me on the behind,’ Kate said, still a little shocked at his reaction. She’d just spent the night holding his hand, thinking what a hero he was. What was it with alphas and their bravado? Trevor checked the vitals on his sleeping patient, and satisfied, made notes on his chart.

‘So he’s awake? That’s amazing! How is he doing? How are his vitals?’

‘He’s stable, the chest drain is working well. I’m still concerned about his leg though. He has limited blood flow to the area, and I’m worried about sepsis. I think the next couple of hours will be crucial.’

Trevor nodded sadly. ‘So, he will probably lose the leg, if we try to keep him alive.’ He rubbed at his temples. ‘Not told him any of this, have you?’

Kate shook her head. ‘I told him you would explain on this morning’s ward round. I wanted to go through everything again, monitor him closely for as long as we safely can before we make a decision.’

Trevor looked at her, his face unreadable. ‘It may not be our decision, it’s up to him.’

Kate looked nonplussed. ‘The evac chopper is coming in two days. At present, he’s too unstable to move. We need to get him home then, leg or no leg. A decision between losing a limb and dying is not a great thing to have thrust at you, granted – but he wants to live, surely?’

Trevor placed the chart at the foot of the bed and started to walk towards the next patient, issuing medication instructions to the nurse as he walked.

‘Kate,’ he began in a tone he might have used to tell his child that Father Christmas wasn’t real. ‘I have worked on men like Captain Cooper since this whole nightmare started. These are army men to the core. Sometimes going home means no family, no buddies, no job, and a lifetime of relying on other people. They are proud, and sometimes, to them, the reality is worse than death. Don’t take anything for granted when it comes to patient wishes.’

Kate ran her fingers through her hair, suddenly feeling tired all over again. He’d never asked anything about himself, his injuries. Whether he was going to live through this. He’d only asked about returning to his team. His sudden macho turnaround made sense now. He was fearful for his career, and she understood that. Trying to keep her career on track hadn’t been life or death, but she had felt torn about not being able to do it, or do it well. Hell, if she didn’t have Jamie to go home to and a marriage breakdown to navigate, she would already have signed up for another tour. She couldn’t imagine not being a doctor. It was part of her.

‘Cooper knows that. Better than most, probably. Let’s see what happens. If we can head off the sepsis, we might not have to cross that bridge.’

‘Understood.’

‘So what you’re saying, Doc, is that I’m screwed.’ Captain Cooper was sat up in bed now, the drain poking out from his side. The internal bleeding had been dealt with, his chest now free from shrapnel. All his organs were intact, and the tears in his body had been sewn up, the bleeding stopped.

Trevor pulled a chair across to sit near his bedside. ‘Your left leg is bad, Captain. You’re starting to show signs of severe infection, and we feel that a below knee amputation is needed. Your chest injuries will take substantial time to heal, and your right leg has been injured by shrapnel from the bomb too. Returning to your unit is out of the question, at least for now. You have a place on the chopper, but the next few hours will decide whether you are fit enough to make the journey back to the UK.’

Captain Cooper sat motionless in the bed, his mind obviously working overtime as he processed the information. Kate stood behind Trevor, watching Cooper with interest. She couldn’t imagine having to make a decision like this. The consent to surgery papers in her hand felt heavy, weighted with their implication.

‘And when do you need an answer?’ Cooper said flatly, not looking at Trevor, but directly at Kate. She blushed under his intent gaze and felt pathetic that her body responded to the pull of attraction she felt to this man at such a time. Trevor pulled a marker pen out of his top pocket, and lifting the covers, made a mark on the area of skin just poking out from the top of the bandages.

‘We need to monitor you. This will tell us if the antibiotics are working – we need to watch out for any colour changes above this line on your leg. We have to make a decision tonight, and I would highly recommend that you have the surgery Captain, and be on that chopper when it leaves.’

Kate looked away from the captain’s face, feeling his gaze on her again. She didn’t trust her own face not to betray her emotions. A deep voice broke the silence of the machines beeping in the room.

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