was. That she could have, in the state of mind that she was in the previous night, walked right past the man and his vehicle didn't dawn on Cole. The only thing important to her at that moment was that there, within easy reach, was another human being, a human who needed help, something that Cole was trained to deal with.
With a few easy bounds, Cole began to make her way to the overturned vehicle. As she drew near, the wreckage began to take on the appearance of a humvee. It was then that Cole realized that she hadn't paused to determine if the voice had been German or American. No matter, she thought as she weaved between the tree trunks. It was another person, a real person who was alive, and that was all that mattered. Only when she came to within a few feet of the vehicle did she slow down and then stop. Trapped under the vehicle, a hardtop humvee with a machine-gun mount on top, the gunner who had been manning the machine gun when it overturned lay silent, crushed to death. The sight of the body, still pinned beneath the humvee, drew Cole near. The soldier, a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty, still wore his helmet and web gear. His hands clutching the rim of the hatch and the grimace on his face told Cole that he had not been killed outright. Rather, he had survived the crash and had in his death throes struggled to free himself.
Cole turned away from that image but found no relief when her eyes fell upon the corpse of another soldier. This one, several meters away from the humvee, was that of a woman, a mere girl from the looks of her. Slowly Cole approached her, following the bloodstained snow that led from the humvee to her. When Cole reached the female, she slowly knelt down, reaching out to touch the face that was stone cold to feel. The female soldier, whoever she had been, was dead. Slowly Cole turned the body over. As the corpse came to rest on its back, strands of long red hair were caught by a slight breeze that stirred through the woods. A few wisps of hair fell across the dead soldier's face, now frozen in a sleeplike serenity. Were it not for the ashen color, it would have appeared to a casual observer that the young female soldier had fallen asleep instead of bleeding to death in the snow. For a moment Cole allowed herself to reflect on this tragedy and wonder why a girl who looked like she should have been at a prom instead of a battlefield had been shot and had died like this.
'She lasted most of the afternoon before she died.'
The words, spoken by an unseen observer, startled Cole, causing her to jump back away from the female body and begin to scramble in panic back into the woods. Only when the voice spoke again, a hasty plea, did Cole manage to slow down and look for its source. 'No! Don't go. Please don't go.'
When she finally managed to stop and look around, she saw where the voice came from. Another soldier, a black man in his early thirties, sat against a tree across a small paved forest trail that she hadn't noticed before. He wore no helmet. His web gear and field jacket were pulled open in front, exposing his uniform shirt and a massive dark stain that covered his entire abdomen. As she looked, Cole could see that the field dressing that rested on the abdomen had turned colors and now was the same color as everything else that the soldier's dried blood had touched.
While Cole was still staring, the black soldier spoke again. 'She lasted most of the day yesterday. Was able to get out of the humvee and crawl some.' He paused, gasping for air while holding back a sob that threatened to cut off his story. 'But she couldn't make it over here. And I…' There was another pause, now more to hold back the tears and sobs that so much wanted to come out. 'I just couldn't, just couldn't get to her. So she just laid there, talking to me for nearly an hour before she finally stopped talking and…' Now there was no more stopping the tears. They just came.'…And she died. Right there. Right in front of me. She died. And I didn't do a damned thing. Not a damned thing.' The last comments were angry ones, angry words spoken through tears that flowed down the black soldier's face.
With one quick rush Cole ran up to the black soldier, knelt down, and began to wipe the tears away with her bare hand. 'It's okay,' she said automatically in the same tone, in the same manner, that she used to talk to patients as they were carried into triage. 'It's going to be okay. Now please relax, just lean back and let me look.' Without waiting for a response, Cole, with one hand on the soldier's face, reached down and carefully began to pull the blood-soaked field dressing away from his abdomen. There was some resistance as she started, because some of the dried blood held the field dressing to the bloodstained shirt and the wound itself. Slowly, gently, Cole managed to free it slightly, pulling it away so that she could see what was behind it.
Just as she succeeded in freeing the field dressing, the black soldier stiffened as sudden spasms of pain racked his body. Cole felt this but continued until she could see behind the field dressing. When she could, she knew why he had jumped. Even before she had moved the dressing a fraction of an inch, dark red blood slowly began to ooze around the dressing and run down across Cole's hand. Though she wanted to stop, Cole eased the dressing a little further away in an effort to see how bad the wound was. This, however, stopped as soon as she saw a section of intestine fall away from his abdomen and against the dressing.
Having seen all that she needed to, Cole carefully eased the dressing back into place. Though she tried to do so without causing the soldier any further pain, that was impossible. With the same effort that Cole put into being as gentle as possible, the soldier fought off wave after wave of pain and the urge to scream. When she had finished and the soldier had managed to compose himself, Cole looked at him, face-to-face. 'I'm a nurse. And you're hurt real bad. I don't know what I can do, but I'll do what I can. Okay?'
Still not recovered fully from the pain and his efforts to keep from yelling out at the top of his lungs, he merely nodded. He couldn't even open his eyes, still tightly shut. 'Okay, soldier. I'm going to go over to the humvee and see if I can find an aid kit. Okay?'
Placing the soldier's left hand over the dressing in an effort to keep pressure on it, Cole looked at him one more time. 'I'll be right back. I'm going to go over to your vehicle and look for a first aid kit. Is that okay?' Again there was no comment. Just another nod. Without waiting, Cole stood up and looked at the soldier one more time. Taking off her parka, she carefully laid it over him, turned, and hurried back to the humvee. There she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the open door that both the dead female and the black soldier must have escaped through. As she searched the humvee for an aid kit, Cole worked her way around the lifeless legs of the machine gunner and a varied knot of personal gear, equipment, ammo boxes, maps, and sundry other items that made her search difficult. But Cole prevailed, finding not one but two aid kits. Pleased, she backed out of the vehicle, ignoring the dead machine gunner, got onto the road, and stood up.
Just as she did, a new voice from down the road shouted, 'HALT!' Spinning about, she saw less than fifty meters away a pair of German soldiers, one of whom held his rifle up to his shoulder and pointed at Cole. It was the enemy. They had returned. Taking a step back, Cole glanced over at the black soldier.
Seeing Cole's action, the soldier had managed to turn his head enough to see that she was in trouble. With every ounce of strength he had left, he pushed away Cole's parka, grabbed the dressing with his left hand again and pushed it as tight against his abdomen as he could. With his right hand he reached down to his side, grabbed the M-16 rifle that had been lying there, and laid it across his lap.
The German who had been in the lead had also seen Cole's reaction and, looking over to where she had turned her head, saw the wounded black soldier, now preparing to bring his rifle to bear. The German, seeing that he himself was in danger, swung the muzzle of his rifle away from Cole, took a quick aim at the black soldier, and fired a short three-round burst.
At that range, the German's volley found its mark. Cole watched in horror as the first round struck the black soldier's left shoulder. The second round, due to the climb of the German's rifle muzzle, hit the soldier in the head. With the muzzle still climbing as the third round left the barrel, the bullet hit the tree just above the soldier's head. But Cole didn't see that. After watching his head jerk after being hit by the second round, his lifeless eyes rolling back into his head, Cole dropped the two aid kits she held, turned, and fled back into the woods followed by random shots from both Germans that missed her but kept her going.
When she finally stopped running, Cole found herself alone again, lost in the woods and more frightened than ever. What shreds of rationality she had managed to hold to until that morning were now gone. Dripping with sweat from her exertions but with no parka to protect her from the chilling winds that began to sweep through the woods, Cole slowly began to wander about without any thought, without any purpose. Only total physical exhaustion stopped her. At the end of her strength, Cole simply dropped onto the ground, curled up into the fetal position, and went to sleep.
It wouldn't be until the spring, when the forests shone in a wild blaze of lush greens and vibrant colors and the last of the melting snows had long disappeared, that Hilary Cole's body would be found.
'The chances of pulling this off, Madam President, are almost nonexistent. There's just no way in hell I can support you in this.'
Peter Soares's reaction didn't surprise Abigail Wilson. For days, despite the fact that he was still her
