Upsetting the Balance

Dracula Szabo slithered over to him. When he saw where Mutt was hit, he started laughing. “Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said after a moment, and even halfway sounded as if he meant it. “I was just thinkin’, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna kiss it and make it better.”

“I ask for a medic an’ I go an’ get W. C. Fields,” Mutt said. “You got a field dressing on you?” At Szabo’s nod, he went on, “Stick it on there, will you?”

“Sure thing. Lift up a little, so I can get your pants down and get at where you’re hit.” When Mutt obeyed, Dracula bandaged him with cool competence that spoke of the practice he’d had at such things. His appraisal also told of that experience: “Doesn’t look too bad, sir. Not quite a crease, but it’s a through-and-through, and it’s just in the ham, not in the bone. You sit tight an’ wait for the medics to take you outta here. You’re gonna be okay, I think.”

“Sit tight?” Mutt rolled his eyes. “I ain’t goin’ anyplace real fast, not with that, but I don’t wanna sit on it, neither.”

“Yeah, well, I can see that,” Dracula answered. He swatted Mutt lightly on the shoulder. “You take care. Good luck to you.” Then he was gone, back to the fight. In the space of a moment, Daniels had gone from platoon leader-essentially, God’s right-hand man-to part of the detritus of war.

He sang out again: “Medic!” That ran the risk of drawing Lizards to him, but he was willing to take the chance. The Lizards were pretty decent about not butchering wounded men, probably better than either the Germans or the Americans had been in the last war.

“Where you hit, soldier?” The man with the Red Cross armband was black; at that moment, Mutt wouldn’t have cared if he’d been green.

“Right in the butt,” he answered.

“Okay.” The black man had a partner who was white. Mutt noticed that, but didn’t say anything about it, even when the Negro kept on being the spokesman: “We’ll get the stretcher over by you, and you slide onto it on your belly, right?”

“Right.” Mutt did as he was told. “Got me what the limeys used to call a Blighty wound: too bad to go on fightin’, but not bad enough to wreck me for good. They’d get shipped back to England and they were done with the war. Me-” He shook his head.

The Negro chuckled sympathetically. “Afraid you’re right about that, Lieutenant. They’ll fix you up and send you out again.” He turned to the white stretcher bearer. “Come on, Jimmy. Let’s get him back to the aid station.”

“Right, Doc.” Jimmy picked up his end of the stretcher.

“Doc?” Mutt said. He’d wondered why the colored guy had done all the talking. “You a doctor?” he asked. He’d learned not to tack “boy” onto that.

“That’s right.” The Negro didn’t look back at Daniels. For the first time, his voice got tight. “Does it bother you, Alabama? If I’m not lily-white enough to take care of you, I can leave you right here.” He sounded deadly serious.

“I’m from Mississippi,” Mutt said automatically. Then he thought about the rest of the question. “I been out of Mississippi a while, too. If you’re American enough to want to patch my ass, I reckon I’m American enough to say thank-you when you’re done.” He waited. He’d run into a few educated black men who were just as good at hating as any Ku-Kluxer.

Doc didn’t say anything for a couple of steps. Then he nodded. “Okay, Mississippi. That sounds fair.”

It damn well better,Daniels thought.You’re not gonna get anything more out of me. But he didn’t say so out loud. The colored doctor was doing his job, and seemed willing to meet him halfway. Given Mutt’s own present circumstances, that was about as much as he had any right to expect.

The aid station had a big Red Cross flag flying in front of it, and several more on the roof. It was a big, foursquare brick building not far from Lake Michigan. Doc said, “Hey, Mississippi, you know what this place was before the war?”

“No, but that don’t matter, on account of I got the feeling you’re just about to tell me,” Mutt answered.

“You’re right,” the Negro said. “You don’t let much bother you, do you? This was-still is, I guess-the Abraham Lincoln Center.”

“Just another damnyankee,” Daniels said, so deadpan that the colored doctor gave him a sharp look over his shoulder before chuckling ruefully. Mutt went on, “Doc, I’ve done two turns of soldiering now, and in between ’em I was a bush-league manager for about a hundred years. So a smartmouth, even a smartmouth doc, that don’t bother me much, no. Gettin’ shot in the ass, now,that bothers me.”

“I can see how that would mess up a man’s day,” Jimmy, the other stretcher bearer, put in.

Some dogfaces trudged past Mutt on their way up to the front. About half of them were grimy veterans like him, the rest fresh-faced kids. Some of the kids looked at the bloodstained bandage on his backside and gulped. That didn’t bother Mutt. He’d done the same thing the first time he saw wounded in France. War wasn’t pretty, and you couldn’t make it pretty.