Captive

~Eight hours ago~

“Captain, would you throw me some tape please?”

I did as asked, but the tape “accidentally” hit Miller in the head.

“I may know who our surprise guest is, but now, I refuse to tell you,” Tara retaliated.

Tara Miller has joined our nursing team of Operation IMPACT in Baghdad two years ago. Canadian Air Forces were mostly men. In the past three years that I have been a nurse officer at this base, there were only a handful of women who joined the operation. From her very first day here, I made sure she felt included and at home, though we were both very far away from home.

I’ve been appointed as the head nurse a year ago, and last month, I got promoted to Captain. However, moving up the ranks hasn’t changed the nature of my friendship with Tara. I had a few close friends back home that I kept in touch with, but the friendships you develop overseas, in a war zone, are quite special. You learn early on that those friendships are for life. All the emotions shared among soldiers of war – from fear to pride, courage and nostalgia – help forge bonds that no time or space could ever break.

“Major McConnell,” I saluted Greg as he entered the room. “Captain Shaw, Lieutenant Miller. I want to remind you that lunch break will be starting 15 minutes early today. Shaw, I expect your whole team to be in your formal uniform and on time at the front entrance of the base to welcome our special guest,” Greg said with his authoritative voice.

“Yes, sir,” I answered, unable to hide my smirk whenever Greg put on the scary Senior Officer act. Nodding at us, Greg tilted his hat and left the clinic.

Greg and I were deployed as part of the same cohort and have developed a deep friendship ever since. Naturally, we bonded over our love for hockey and board games, our Scottish ancestors, and our longing to go back home to Halifax every summer.

“It’s slow at the clinic lately,” Tara said as she stowed the last of the sterilized supplies in a drawer.

“That’s always a good thing when you’re a surgical nurse in a conflict zone, Miller. Always a good thing,” I said with a sigh.

At 11:45 sharp, our entire crew lined up, including soldiers, nurses, doctors, and volunteers. We were all impatiently waiting for our guest to show up. The noon July sun made the wait feel excruciatingly long but I heard whispers about who our guest was and I was excited to meet him in person. To me, to most of us really, he was a national hero. He was worth the wait.

Our guest seemed to be paying us a very official visit. A convoy of black SUVs arrived near the scene. They were driving quite fast and came to an abrupt stop within a few hundred meters.

Greg, who was facing me on the other side of the red carpet, had a horrified look on his face. He started yelling through his earpiece. He seemed suspicious of these vehicles. Our guest could not have been in this convoy though, because seconds later, I saw him step out of a car that had parked much closer to us. I was pretty sure it was him.

Tara, who stood next to me, looked alarmed and said something that I couldn’t understand over all the yelling. Chaos was ensuing and I had no idea what to do or where to go. We were definitely unprepared for a hostile situation, if that’s what our armed forces were predicting at that moment.

Analyzing the situation proved to be pointless. The chaos lasted for 20 seconds only, when an explosion put an end to everything.

*****

“You were supposed to be our guest today, weren’t you?” I asked the man, needing some sort of confirmation that it was actually him, Sidney Crosby, the hockey star, our national team captain, the pride and joy of Nova Scotia.

“You’re a soldier, you must know how to get us out of here, right?” he asked instead of confirming his identity. But his question was fair. I was in uniform after all, though a torn one.

“I’m a Nursing Officer, not a soldier. And even if I was, I don’t think I can break a steel door, or squeeze out of that tiny hole. From what I can see, these are the only ways out.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to figure out what happened and how I ended up where I was. Our kidnappers must have sedated me because I couldn’t remember anything past Greg’s panicked face.

What would Josh do? Think, think, come on. I willed myself not to panic as I the possibility of never leaving this prison in one piece came rushing through my mind. I knew what they would do to us given the chance. What would Josh do?

We sat there in silence for a while; it could have been minutes or maybe hours. It was too quiet, with no sign of anyone else in the building we were in. The door didn’t even have a window to inspect what’s on the other side of our cell. I stood on the tip of my bare toes to look out the small hole in the wall, but I wasn’t tall enough.

“Don't bother. It’s all sand, no sign of civilization,” Sidney Crosby mumbled.

I started pacing restlessly. We’ve been waiting for a while to know who locked us here and why. No one bothered to show up yet. Was it in their plan to leave us here to die from hypothermia, thirst and hunger?

I considered yelling for help, hoping someone would hear me. But then, I wasn’t so sure if I wanted whomever it was behind that door to come. What if they decided to hurt us?

The desert at night was cold and unforgiving, and my torn uniform and bare legs were not helping. I spotted what looked like a small wooden bench on one of the walls. I lied down and curled on myself.

“You said you’re a nurse,” Crosby said. When I mumbled a yes, he added quietly, “I think I’m bleeding.”

I jumped off the bed and was at his side quickly. “Where?” I asked inspecting his face since I noticed some dried blood earlier.

“My stomach,” he said wincing. I moved his hand away from where he was pressing. I couldn’t see well but I did feel it on my hand and on his. He was bleeding. Fuck. I had no medical supplies and no damn light to even check the amount of damage.

“Keep the pressure on. It’s not bleeding that heavily from what I can sense,” I lied, not wanting to scare him. Our situation was scary enough.

“Can you tell me when you first felt it?” I asked trying to assess how much blood he might have lost.

“Not long ago, I think,” he said, taking a couple of deep breaths.

“Does it hurt?” I asked. He seemed to be in pain. How have I not noticed this earlier?

“Yeah,” he exhaled unsteadily.

“There may be a debris that got dislodged and started poking you just now. I can try to get it out, but we’ll be risking an infection, in this place, in the state we’re in, lacking everything I need to treat you...” I stopped myself because I was starting to freak us both out. He may bleed to death or die from sepsis in this place, whichever comes first.

As a military nurse, I was trained to work in stressful situations. It was not part of the job – it was the job. But having no supplies, equipment, or even a light, no, it was not a stressful situation; it was rather an impossible one.

I took a deep breath and assessed the possibilities. What would be the best course of action here? He’ll obviously die from bleeding much faster than an infection at this rate. My mind tried to make the best-calculated decision, which was obviously to control the bleeding first and worry about an infection later.

“Alright, listen to me. I need to stop the bleeding somehow. So, you’re gonna have to bear with me because I need to check your wound for any foreign objects. It may hurt,” I said gently. I looked him in the eye and mustered a reassuring smile, the same way I did for hundreds of wounded soldiers in the past. There’s nothing that would scare a strong man more than death, no matter how many hero stories that said otherwise. They were all scared.

Crosby was not supposed to be a war hero. He was not prepared for death like our soldiers were. He was a different kind of national hero; a hero whose life was in my hands, in my empty, useless hands.

I unbuttoned his wet shirt and slowly removed it off his shoulders and arms. I blindly inspected his wound. I was right, there was a small sharp object causing the bleeding. The issue then was, if I take it out, the bleeding may get worst.

He groaned in pain and I was willing myself to make a faster decision. Instinct. It boils down to instinct sometimes and my guts were telling me to take it out and control the bleeding with more pressure.

I kept one hand on him as I used my other hand and teeth to get a long piece of fabric from my sleeve, the sleeve that had our flag on it, I contemplated briefly.

I placed it on my leg as I gave Crosby some directions. I removed the offending object and Crosby groaned in pain but pressed his hand as instructed.

As I was trying to tie my sleeve around him, I realized that he was much wider than I had anticipated. Fuck.

I peeled my other sleeve, tied them together at a lightning speed. Luckily this time, it worked. I tightened the makeshift bandage as best as I could around him and inspected the bleeding.

I exhaled a sigh of relief and wiped my sweaty forehead with my bare arm. The bleeding slowed down. It’ll do for now. Crosby’s breathing has relatively settled down too. I wiped my hands on my uniform, unsure what else to do without a scrub sink. It’s not like I was in the operating room at the base.

The base. My team. My friends. My family. My chest tightened. They could all be dead now. Whoever detonated that bomb, may have killed them all. We were all gathered at once, in the same location at the same time, waiting for our special guest to show up, the guest who was too quiet at the moment.

“How are you feeling?” I asked him as I sat beside him.

“Fine,” he said faintly, sounding exhausted. Was he falling asleep or passing out from blood loss? His pulse seemed okay though.

“Thank you...”

“Mia,” I said nodding at him.

Seeing that he was better, I settled down next to him. I looked at the clear night sky and prayed for someone to find us, for someone to rescue us, for my crew to be alive, for both of us to stay alive to witness another morning sun.

Notes