Angel of Mercy (4 page)

Chelsea walked inside and was greeted by the sound of music. Upon further inspection, Chelsea saw that an iPod was connected to two big speakers up against the far wall of the tent. Around a table in the center of the room, Chelsea saw four or five people sitting in chairs that were tipped back. Everyone had his or her feet on the table.

This place seems a little undisciplined,
Chelsea thought as she slowly made her way in. One of the females turned around and waved Chelsea over. “Come on in. You look lost. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re new in this joint, but I haven’t seen you before.”

“Chelsea Bannister, ma’am. I just got here.”

Chelsea sat down and leaned on her arms on the table but before she could relax the man next to her grabbed her arm and said, “You better put your feet up.”

Chelsea looked at the man with a doubtful expression. She had heard that hazing went on in some of the deployments, and she didn’t want to be the butt of someone’s joke. But the man looked dead serious. He tapped her leg.

“Put them up, Bannister. There are lots of scorpions that look for a shady spot and under a table is some of the best shade we can offer. Keep your footwear off the ground in your CHU, too.”

Chelsea realized that Lisa Glenn had good reason for leaving her shoes on the couch.
Maybe I ought to give these people a chance before I judge them too harshly.

From that moment on Chelsea decided to listen first and opine later. The decision served her well. The man who had warned her about scorpions turned out to be a very important older gentleman in her life. He was Dr. Edward McGuire. That is, Captain McGuire to the staff, Ed to his best friends and Eddie Mac to his wife (and only to his wife). Captain McGuire was serving his third two year tour (each tour separated by a year at home) in war-torn Afghanistan, having left a practice in Portsmouth New Hampshire in the care of his colleague, Anthony Descalso.

Captain McGuire was beloved by his staff, and the talk of a few of the nurses. That wasn’t surprising given his steel gray eyes, cleft chin, and wavy blonde hair just beginning to gray at the temples. No wartime romance for Captain McGuire, though. His heart belonged to Margaret Mary McGuire, 24 years his wife, and waiting for him stateside in New Hampshire.

Chelsea threw herself into her work, and there was plenty of work to be accomplished. The day after her arrival, a day that was supposed to be set aside for paperwork and settling in, Chelsea pulled a 10-hour tour, almost all of it in surgery. There had been horrific fighting on the A01 between Kabul and Jalalabad. There were 11 confirmed dead and two soldiers missing and presumed dead.

Sixteen wounded were brought back to the Med Unit at Bagram Airbase to be cared for by Captain McGuire’s medical team. On her first day, Chelsea was the nurse in charge of keeping a sterile field. Back home this was a task that would have been the role of a Nurse’s Aide, but at the front it was all hands on deck for whatever task needed to be done.

Chelsea sensed rather than saw Captain McGuire’s expert touch and calming mood in action. He had a word for every one of the soldiers with whom he came in contact. The injured warriors (on average 20 years old) wouldn’t have said that they needed a father figure when they were in pain, but that’s what Captain McGuire became to the scared lads who had been hurt in battle.

After a word or two Captain McGuire calmly called for the anesthesiologist to do her thing and the patient drifted off to sleep, somehow more at peace after his interaction with Captain McGuire.

The other team member that Chelsea noticed was the head nurse. First Lieutenant Alice McKay had been serving under Captain McGuire for nearly two years, and the two worked together like a well-oiled machine. Lieutenant McKay ruled the nursing staff with an iron hand; Chelsea found that out at once when she clumsily dropped a retractor that had been sterile just moments before. “Private Bannister, we need
all
of the equipment to remain in a properly sterile condition when we put it in your arguably capable hands! Do I Make Myself Clear, Private Bannister?”

Chelsea bit her lip and nodded. That wasn’t response enough for the nurse in charge.

“I expect an answer, Private Bannister. When I talk,
if
you hear, I expect you to respond. Are we at least clear about that, Private Bannister?”

“Yes, Lieutenant McKay. Crystal clear.”

For all of her bluster over Chelsea’s mistake, Alice McKay was as capable a combat nurse as could be found in the Afghan Theater of Operations. She expected (demanded) that the nurses under her behave professionally and proficiently. In return, she would back any of her charges as if she were a mother hen. That is if a mother hen yelled at her chicks as often as Lieutenant McKay yelled at her nurses. The six nurses who worked directly under Lieutenant McKay obeyed her slavishly, grumbled about her behind her back, but without exception admired her dauntless effort, dedication to her task and pure unadulterated stamina.

Lieutenant McKay never let anyone know her age, but she appeared to be somewhere between 38 and 50 years old. None of her nurses, no matter how much younger than she they might be, could outwork First Lieutenant Alice Abigail McKay. She never talked about the hours that she worked, but nurses told tales about stumbling home to their CHU after a 15-hour tour, sleeping for 10 hours, and going back to find Lieutenant McKay still hard at it and hard at it throughout the next 10-12 hours.

Corporal Wendy Schafer once said, “I don’t think she’s human.” None of the other nurses felt confident disagreeing.

As time went by, Chelsea proved to be a capable and proficient nurse in a wartime field medical facility. At first she just wanted to get through a tour without being dressed down by Lieutenant McKay and gradually that happened. The first time that Chelsea and Lieutenant McKay were leaving the facility together and Chelsea received a “Good work today, Private Bannister,” from Lieutenant McKay was the happiest day that Chelsea had experienced since she had enlisted. Rather than thinking of her CHU as “This claustrophobic box” Chelsea rested in her bed and thought of it as “home” that day.

One thing that Chelsea struggled with, at least at first was the depth of injury that so many of the patients experienced. She eventually learned to keep a concerned, yet kind, expression on her face when roadside bombs all but blew the faces off of the young American soldiers. More than once she thanked God that Guy Harris had been mercifully taken into the Holy Bosom rather than suffering like so many of Chelsea’s patients had to suffer.

I wouldn’t have thought that day would ever come,
Chelsea thought to herself the first time that emotion had come to her.

Six months, and countless hours patching up wounded soldiers later, Chelsea got her first extended leave. This was a chance to reconnect with Gloria Vesta! Chelsea couldn’t have been more excited than she would have been if she had just spotted Brad Pitt. The two young nurses had been hoping to be stationed in the same place, but the Army made no promises about that. Chelsea and Gloria learned what generations of soldiers had learned before, namely if the Army doesn’t put it in writing it is not likely to happen.

As it turned out, while Chelsea was trying to stay out of Lieutenant McKay’s dog house, Gloria was doing the same with the nurse in charge at Kandahar International Air Base in that city. Kabul and Kandahar are separated by 308 miles, but the conditions under which the two friends worked were almost identical. They had much to discuss. Chelsea and Gloria decided to meet at Kabul’s only hotel of note, the Hotel Serena just west of the center of Kabul. They would have five days together.

Chapter Three

In the heart of the city overlooking Zarnegar Park, the Kabul Serena Hotel is the first five-star hotel to open in Afghanistan in over 35 years. It was touted from its conception as a symbol of confidence in the reconstruction and redevelopment of Afghanistan and in the Afghan people themselves. Built to exacting standards with loving care and attention to details—cultural, aesthetic and historic—the hotel is a masterpiece of architecture and craftsmanship.

Most important to Chelsea and Gloria, it had a pool and a breakfast buffet with bacon! Bacon from real, once-oinking pigs! Never had anything sounded more delicious and heaven sent than that. The cook at the base tried really hard, and Chelsea appreciated what was placed before her, but she had found herself having dreams that involved bacon, eggs, waffles, strawberries and mountains of real cream whipped into lovely peaks.

She felt her mouth start to water at the thought while she brushed her mane of chestnut colored hair and got ready to leave her CHU for the last time for almost a week.

Meanwhile, Gloria was preparing to leave the air base in Kandahar as well. But she was preparing to leave in quite a different manner. She was lying in her bed beneath Private First Class Chad Anderson. Private Anderson had noticed Gloria from the day that she had arrived on base. Indeed he had been the clerk that had issued Gloria her very first uniform. He offered to “show her the ropes” since she had just arrived in Afghanistan.

Soon he was showing her more than the ropes. The two became intimate within a month, and Gloria was head over heels in love with the “Charmer from Alabammer” as she liked to call him. On this day, he was saying goodbye to Gloria for the better part of a week, and doing it by plunging in and out of her for the second time in 12 hours.

Gloria rose to meet him and raked her nails across his back. She knew that he liked to be scratched, and since it was her natural response to the emotion that he brought to bear in her, it was something that she did quite a lot. He was an expert lover, giving Gloria trips to the top of Lust Candy Mountain as no one had before. Gloria moaned in pleasure as he grew inside her preparing to offer his seed.

Suddenly, with a sharp cry and a climactic “
Oh, Chad
” Gloria threw herself full tilt into her own orgasm. The two lovers bucked into one another’s hips in a frenzied flood of bodily fluids, sweat and passion.

Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms for a bit before Gloria absolutely and positively had to catch the bus to Kabul. After muttered “I’ll miss you” and “How much will you miss me?” the pair unpeeled from one other so Gloria could leave. Gloria told herself that whatever misgivings that she had about the relationship could wait until later. Perhaps she would talk to Chelsea about it at the hotel.

Chelsea got to the Hotel Serena and checked in almost an hour before Gloria arrived. She knew that she would get there first but had been too excited to wait at the base for the time that would have gotten the two girls to the hotel simultaneously. She toured the hotel grounds, familiarizing herself with the amenities. She was almost able to feel the pool surrounding her tired body with its liquid panacea. She almost tasted the real coffee that she knew was in the carafes. She was almost feeling the crisp cool sheets as they would surround her in luxury.

I wonder if they would serve me coffee in the pool if I weren't wearing anything but one of the bed sheets and the naked body I was born with?
Chelsea thought to herself. Then she giggled the laugh that only comes out of someone on Day One of a much anticipated vacation.

After her tour of the grounds, Chelsea went down to the lobby and read a magazine until it was time for Gloria to show up. Chelsea was halfway through an English language edition of Entertainment Weekly’s special “All Kardashian All the Time” issue when a shadow fell over the magazine. It was Gloria, wearing a smile as wide as the Afghan sky.

Private First Class Bannister left the building right then as Chelsea became just Chelsea. She squealed in delight as she jumped up and hugged Gloria for everything that she was worth. Gloria whooped in the sheer pleasure of being with her dear friend again. The two reunited nurses from Keystone College led one another around the end table in an impromptu dance that was part two step, part waltz, and 100% two girls happy to see one another again after what were just a few months, but seemed like years upon years.

Eventually the dance came to an end, and Chelsea led Gloria upstairs so she could change. On the way up the elevator, Chelsea talked about the food and the pool and the sauna and the food again so fast that her words tumbled over each other. Gloria took in as much as she was able to take in, but Chelsea’s enthusiasm was what Gloria noticed the most. “I needed this,” Gloria thought. “I needed this more than I knew.”

Finally, the girls decided that what they really needed first was a dip in the cobalt blue waters of the Hotel Serena’s outdoor pool. After that they would have dinner and drinks. Then…well, probably a dessert so high you can barely see the top.
Why not?
Gloria thought. That night, half asleep from the swim and the decadent helpings of delicious food, Chelsea and Gloria were laying on the double beds in Room 314 in the hotel.

They had reminisced about life in college and how it differed from military life. While they both spoke of how much they missed the half hour long hot showers that were available to them stateside, they were likewise glad that they had enlisted and proud of the work that they were doing. After the girls had fallen silent Gloria leaned on her elbow and said, “Chels, I want to tell you about Chad.”

Chelsea’s eyes widened a bit as she answered, “Whoever Chad is, I would like to hear about him. Tell me everything.” Gloria told Chelsea about how she had met Chad on base. She shared about how she was immediately attracted to his ready smile, sense of humor and ability to find fun in even the most arduous conditions. She told Chelsea that Chad was the life of the party even if there were no party to be found. She went on to say that Chad made her feel loved and not so alone when night fell, and she was oh-so-very lonely. After a solid 30 minutes, Gloria paused and took a breath. Chelsea interjected, “I’m so happy for you Gloria! I’m thrilled! It sounds like you’re in love with him.”

“I am. I’m sure of that, only…”

“Only what?”

“He’s married.”

Chelsea waited to see if Gloria intended to add anything more. When it appeared that the conversation had become a waiting game, Chelsea cleared her throat. “Gloria, I know it’s lonely here. God knows that I get lonely, too. But, a married man? What does he say about his wife?”

“He doesn’t much. He stopped wearing his wedding ring when he and I got together. He says he loves me.”

“Does he say he loves you in the light of day or just when you’re having sex?”

“Mostly then but he says it other times, too,” Gloria said, with a touch of defensiveness in her tone. Chelsea hurried to explain. “I’m not judging you, but I have evolved a little since I got here. I’ve been attending services put on by our base Chaplain and it has gotten me to think about things that I hadn’t thought before. Things like ‘Why am I here’, or ‘Why are any of us here?’ It’s given me a sense of active right and wrong.”

Gloria tilted her head to the side. “What is active right and wrong?”

“I’ve always tried to do pretty much the right thing, but I’ve done it…casually, I guess. I never thought about how the right thing is the right thing because it hurts the fewest number of people. God’s rules were put in place because they are the best ways for us to get along with each other. The Chaplain said that the divorce rate for people in the military is huge.”

Gloria bit her lip. “Chad let a picture of his wife fall out of his wallet one time. She’s pretty. They have two kids, too.”

Chelsea looked at her friend and didn’t say anything. Gloria said quietly, “I know.”

Chelsea crossed the space between the beds as Gloria began to cry. Gloria’s voice was mostly muffled, but Chelsea made out the gist of what her friend was saying through her sadness. She was saying that she knew what she was doing was wrong, but when the wounded were especially gruesome and heartbreaking, and the sandstorms were the most powerful, and when the loneliness bore down on her so hard that it felt like a physical weight, she was weak. And felt like she needed Chad’s comforting arms around her.

Chelsea held her friend. She understood completely. She had never had any designs on Captain McGuire, but she had heard enough of the nurses talk about him that she knew that she was in the minority. And she was being truthful when she said that she didn’t judge Gloria for being a part of Chad Harrison’s adultery. Truth told a part of her wished that she had just been content to be happy for her friend and let things go.

“Darn those talks with the Chaplain. Sometimes moral fiber is a cross to bear all on its own,” she thought.

Gloria had fallen asleep on Chelsea’s bed. As excited as she was to be with her friend, and regardless of how the two young women had intended to paint Kabul red on the first day of leave, the sleep deprivation that is part and parcel of the life of a combat nurse won the night. Chelsea decided not to wake her. Chelsea covered Gloria’s torso with the top sheet of the bed and removed Gloria’s shoes. Chelsea then tiptoed to the other bed and switched off the light.

At 0830, Chelsea woke to the sliver of light that had poked through the gap in the drapes. She looked over to the other bed and saw that Gloria’s slumber was still undisturbed as she was on her left side facing the room. Sometime in the night Gloria had awakened and undressed. Chelsea watched her dear friend sleep, hoping that the discussion about Chad Harrison wouldn’t leave any lingering discomfort between them.

She needn’t have worried about that. Just before 0900 hours Gloria woke, stretched and said, “I’m Starvin’ Marvin over here, Chels. Let’s hit the breakfast buffet.”

The rest of the time that the girls had together flew past as leave always flies by. The young ladies swam, sunned themselves, swam some more and ate like they would never see food again. On the last day before they were to part, Chelsea went into the hotel fitness area for a workout in preparation for going back to the base. When she stepped on the scale, she shrieked. Gloria, preparing to lift some weights in the next room ran into the room where Chelsea was staring wide-eyed at the scale. Chelsea looked at her friend and said, “I’ve gained eight pounds this week.”

Back on base, Chelsea soon realized that other people were noticing how much she had enjoyed her time away. Lieutenant McKay “recommended” that Chelsea put in a little extra P.T. after work. Even Captain McGuire raised his eyebrows a bit when one of his favorite young nurses showed up in a uniform of the day that pulled a bit at the buttons. Chelsea knew that she would never relax so profoundly again, regardless of how appealing the buffet was.

Two months later Chelsea, fit again, was working feverishly with Captain McGuire. The patient was a 20-year old Afghan who had been shot in the upper thoracic region by a round from an AK47.

Handgun wounds were virtually unheard of during the last two major conflicts in which the United States has found herself embroiled. Firearm wounds are mostly from AK47s or other high-velocity rifles. The great majority of casualties are wounds that the medical personnel never see in peace-time: mostly a combination of fragment, burn, and blast wounds from grenades and land mines. Veteran physicians and nurses do the best that they can in preparing newbie’s with simulators and pictures, but one of the greatest challenges in combat operations involves having to treat injuries they've never seen before. Captain McGuire always concluded training classes with,

“You might want to rent
Black Hawk Down
—it's a very accurate picture of the types of wounds you will see when you get to the medical unit in Afghanistan.”

Chelsea, Lieutenant McKay, and three other nurses had left the relative familiar surroundings of the medical unit that day and traveled fifteen kilometers west where, just outside the suburban village of Ettefaq Town, a roadside bomb had been followed up by small and medium arms fire from behind the walls of the buildings. There they had found more business than they would have liked. They had performed triage in the area and were currently working on Akhmar Abballabad.

Akhmar Abballabad wasn’t a soldier, freedom fighter, insurgent or any of the other words that people use to separate the “Us” from the “Them.” He was a sheepherder, from a family of proud sheep herders six generations deep. On this day, he had chosen the wrong time to go to the market for some eggs. Crossfire between the north and south sides of the Kampani Road down which Akhmar walked had claimed him as a victim.