SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

The sergeant stood up, his shoulders relaxing. After a moment, he smiled, showing all of his teeth. “So a gangshi is a jumping dead man?”

Lee nodded. “The farmers believe this old story.”

A patient cried out from across the room, a boy who was likely from a farm. His voice was high, hysterical. “We must guard against them, before it’s too late!”

Miss Jenny stood up at once, starting towards the shouter. “Now you calm down, there’s no reason to be shouting like that.”

“Jinjeong yeomso saekki,” snarled another. “It is grandmother talk!”

“Ulineun jug-eul geos-ida!” the farm boy cried.

“Dangsin-eun muji!” another said, laughing at the boy’s ignorance.

Miss Jenny called out to the other nurse on duty, Miss Claire, told her to go get someone. Doctor Jimmy was nowhere to be seen, and two of the regular evening nurses were assisting with a surgery in the OR next door.

The sergeant put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, loud. The injured ROKA soldiers all dried up at once, turning to look at him. “Calm down, boys,” he said loudly, a snap in his voice. “It’s a story.”

He was an American soldier and therefore every ROK’s superior, but it was his clear tone of dismissal that calmed them, even the shouter. Nurse Jenny looked at the sergeant with bright eyes and thanked him warmly as everyone settled down. Lee wished that he could earn a look like that, from any of the nurses.

Faintly, from somewhere to the north, he heard a bell toll, a low, carrying note, and froze. He looked at Pak Mun-Hee, who looked back at him with an expression of disbelief. Of fear.

The tall sergeant chuckled, shook his head. “Jumping dead men,” he said, and turned back to his group, and from the OR came a scream of pure terror, and the sound of metal hitting the floor, then more screams.

* * *

Captain Steven ‘Stitch’ Anthony started his shift in a fine mood. The mail had brought a funny, chatty letter from his mother, he’d tagged Jonesy out in the afternoon scratch game — twice — and all of the boys he’d fixed up were doing fine and dandy. He’d been joking around with one of his patients when Claire had called him over to see the Korean kid.

“Read me the chart,” he said, pulling the blanket down. The ROK’s belly was distended and solid.

“Twenty-year-old male presents posterior entry wound at L-1, bullet entered left of mid-sagittal and fragmented off the left lateral process of L-1, no anterior wound, fragments removed—”

“Get him prepped, I want him in the theater five minutes ago,” Stitch said. The nurses moved, God love ‘em. The kid was intubated and Anthony had a scalpel in hand before he had time to notice how rotten his mood had become.

Goddamn Gene, you sack of shit excuse for a surgeon. The major had missed a bowel cut and the kid was in trouble, peritonitis or ascites or a bleed, maybe all three. Gene had learned how to cut from a coloring book; he’d taken care of the mesenteric bundle and called it good.

Good enough for a ROK, anyway. If it had been an American kid, the major would have checked his work; he’d had the time, he just hadn’t bothered. Gene Fowler was a menace, an unskilled, humorless hack.

Lieu Jackieboy was the anesthetist, Sheryl and Linda assisted. Anthony told them to get the towels up and opened the patient’s abdominal cavity, cutting smoothly. As soon as he was in, pink water poured out and the girls sopped it up, mostly lymph and interstitial fluid but there was a nice bleed, too. Thank you, Major Gene!

Linda got retractors on the opening. It took a minute to suction out the fluid and when they were down to sponges, Anthony saw the seep of fresh blood. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

He pushed the viscera aside. “Linda, hold this, I want to take a look at the liver.”

Linda didn’t hesitate, reached into the kid and held his guts out of the way. Sheryl kept sponging. Stitch gently slipped his fingers beneath the rubbery meat of the liver and lifted. Blood spurted out in a jet, splashing the front of his gown. Motherfucker!

He set the organ down immediately but the open cavity began to fill with blood. Significant laceration of the common hepatic, and he’d apparently just made it worse. He reached under and pressed his thumb against the artery, felt it slip and slide.

“BP is a hundred over fifty,” Jackie said.

“Hemostat,” he said. “And hang another bag.”

The only reason the kid hadn’t bled out already was that there had been three pounds of liver sitting on top of the cut. Stitch kept up the pressure as Sheryl slapped a clamp into his hand, but blood kept coming. Another laceration, maybe the celiac—

“Seventy over forty,” Jackie said, his voice strained.

Stitch cursed under his breath, placed the clamp and called for another one, but the blood wasn’t spurting anymore. Weak pulses of it washed against his hand.

“BP,” he snapped.