Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan, year 1

LIII

Sorry, I needed a break. What happened to Poll is hard, and not because it robs us of a fighter. But because... Oh damn, I'm going too fast, again. Sorry.

So, we got to base, Erk jumped onto the pickup bed as soon as it stopped. We had slowed down when we reached our road, because you can't go too fast with all the traps.

In front of us, behind us, the twelve motorcycles were all carrying double. Not enough room for all, but the others, under the command of Kris and Shorn, would return on foot, partially reassured about the fate of their comrades.

Erk took Poll in his arms, delicately, and carried him to sick bay.

The rest of us took our stuff off, the bikers parked their steeds. The motorcycle patrol quickly recovered. Once they got off their bikes, their sense of urgency no longer needed, the guys came back to their senses. They helped us manage Curly's patrol.

I assigned buddies to each of Curly's men, to take them to the mess hall where Cook was waiting for them with brandy and hot tea. Cognac first, bottoms up because it's not one that deserves consideration, then hot tea. While waiting for the guys on foot to come home, while waiting for news from the doctor, we gathered in the mess hall, with a cup of tea too.

Lin and Fatso were here, with Curly. Kris, Shorn and their men came back. We were all there except Mike in the Ops room and Doc, Nanny and Erk in sick bay. Kris got up, went to get a clean shirt for his brother, while Cook, following his instructions, was preparing the vile concoction the Viking must drink after each of his Healings, to rehydrate and replenish his electrolytes.

After a wait that seemed like forever, Erk entered the mess hall, followed by Doc. Clinging to the wall, he collapsed, barely managing to slow his sliding fall and landed a bit roughly on the ground. Kris, who had been waiting for him at the door, handed him the canteen which he almost drained in one go. As Doc scratched her throat for our attention, Kris helped him change and get up.
- Curly? Doc was standing next to him, touching his shoulder, speaking softly to him.
- Yes? he replied after a while.
- Can you tell us what happened?

While waiting to find out what had happened to Poll, Lin and Fatso had made Curly relax, with the help of one or two glasses of brandy, with hot tea, with kind words. At no point did they discuss with him what had happened, preferring to wait until the right moment to get the whole story all at once.

Curly is an old soldier, a grizzled veteran. I think he must be close to Karl's age, or barely younger. He's not far from his fifties, that's for sure. He's pretty calm, as a guy, and there's not much that scares him. But that day, he looked his age. Lin rubbed his back, whispering in his ear. I didn't feel jealous this time because Curly didn't have Karl's appreciative gaze. He ran his hands over his face, took a sip of the tea and scratched his throat.
- We'd just heard from Stig that the fountains were stopped, so Poll started riding the waves to warn you. And there... there... he...

He was having trouble talking, our sergeant. Fatso poured him a third glass of brandy, which he drained dry. Erk and Kris came and sit on the bench next to me. The giant was no longer shivering but he was quite pale.
- He... Poll got all stiff, eyes wide, Curly went on and his own eyes were wide too, his mouth open as if screaming silently and blood began to flow from his nose and ears. Our earpieces starting whistling and we took them off and Poll fell forward. Jude managed to catch him. We... we tried to notify the base by radio, but nothing, we tried with my phone and everything worked except the communications.

So it wasn't an EMP flash, I thought to myself at the time. Otherwise the phones would have burned out completely.
- We figured out we had to get home asap, but we had no way to tell Benji and his team, who we couldn't abandon there.