Revenge of the Pothead Ch. 10-15

I could only guess what would happen to the value of this house later, but I suspected that it might never return to residential use, anyway. It was part of history now, or else it would be. For now, though, I had to clean up from setting up a field hospital in a total stranger's house. Sadly for me, this time, I would shower alone.

Oh, well, with the dead and wounded pouring in, I didn't have time or anything like that for company.

Fuck my luck.

Chapter 13

"Orders from the top. We must prioritize Militia over enemy wounded," Dr. Samuel Singh informed us now.

"Well, that's ... medically ... unethical, by all usual standards, but probably necessary. Anyway, it's an order, so we have to follow it. This isn't the Holocaust and we're not the SS or Gestapo. We're doctors and nurses doing the best that we can, and we're also soldiers in an army with a chain of command," Anne observed, ending that debate as far as all of us were concerned.

If Dr. Anne Thorpe accepted it, and she was our unit commander, the woman that we'd trusted for so many months now, we would do it. Her decisions had saved untold lives before, more than we could count. She had just saved us all from being rocket fodder less than a week before. Also, yes, for me, I knew the woman literally inside and out. I trusted her implicitly.

"Aye, aye, Captain. One less decision to make. Saves time and lives, too," I assured Anne of my obedience to her command and that of the brass.

"It's basically just another form of triage, anyway," Aaron observed.

"I'd have to agree with that," Corporal Kristen Mackey added, but she was an orderly and had little say.

"Less talk, more action. The bodies are starting to trickle in now and soon it'll be a flood!" Anne warned us sternly, but that was only because she didn't want us to get swamp.

Good intentions or not, too much chatter could be distracting at a critical point, which this was about to become. I checked a pulse on one of the first victims coming in. Nothing. Skin was cold and clammy. He was a goner. No CPR or shock paddles for him. Too far gone.

"Time of death, twenty-two hundred hours local time. Let's get him out of here. Walker, Mackey, you know what to do," Anne barked an order and we didn't hesitate to obey her.

"We need the bed, anyway," Singh remarked as another body was brought in and another after that.

The trickle had already become a deluge, or at least a flash flood. We were constantly busy, doing one surgery after another, saving more than we lost, but still losing a few here or there. There was only so much we could do with limited resources, particularly manpower. We were further spread thin by the need for nurses and orderlies to take turns removing the slain from their beds to the funeral pyres just outside the residential areas.

While the ranks of the preserved grew exponentially, the numbers of the dead climbed slowly and steadily as well. Inevitably, a handful of enemy survived, but their chances decreased due to being a lower priority compared to Militia. They were lucky to have any shot at all, given the increased strain on our medical supplies. We were also rather tired, but what else was new? We operated on adrenaline, our minds going on autopilot for the most part, our hands going on muscle memory and partly on instinct. Once again, it was a blur, a haze, a daze.

I didn't snap out of that until at some point I fell asleep and was awakened. By Anne, who else? She looked very worried and upset.

"Darling, you collapsed from exhaustion and overwork. Don't worry. Someone filled in the gap and we saved that patient, oddly enough an enemy combatant. A Klansman who might wish in time that he hadn't been saved, depending on his very uncertain future. You simply pushed yourself too far. Remember, in addition to helping with patients, you also helped transport bodies out of the hospitals.

"That combination must have broken you. I've only seen this now and then, given the sheer capacity of human adrenaline and willpower. You pushed yourself to that brink and then finally went over it. Don't do that again. That's a direct order from your superior officer. Do you clearly understand me? You're no use to us dead," Anne told me with several kisses to my face, her own lines of fatigue and stress plain on hers.

"How did you get away from it all?" I asked her now.

"Well, there's been a significant lull in the fighting again. I think that the Klan's getting plenty desperate. They're said to be boxed in at the industrial, commercial, and government districts of Winston-Salem. Down to a third of their previous strength, too. Maybe two thousand or so men, possibly some women armed at the last minute. Hell, some reports have them arming boys and girls. I wouldn't be shocked if they were, though I'd be even more furious than I am," Anne told me now.

"So, their human wave assault was an abysmal failure, then, and it broke them," I stated rather than asked.

"Indeed. It's a pity that they retreated when they did in a way, though. If they hadn't, they would have been completely engulfed and possibly annihilated. This way, they're hanging on, circling the fucking drain. It's probably their last-ditch stand, though. No armor. No mortars. No rockets. No shells. No anti-tank guns. No heavy machine gun nest.

"They even had to abandon their sandbags, or else their perimeter would have entirely and utterly collapsed. They're largely down to their small arms, but it's gonna be tricky and costly to root them out at this point," Anne briefed me a little before giving me some bottled water to drink.

"Which means that we'll have more hard work in the very near future," I remarked.

"Precisely, which is why you need to recover. I need my sharpest nurse on the job, and that's you, love. As I said, that's an order. No discussion. No argument here. I'm pulling rank and that's that," Anne demanded of me, the love and pride in her eyes rather charming to say the least.

"Okay, but when this is over, I'm sharing a bong with you. I insist," I retorted, adding, "ma'am, of course. I don't want to be insubordinate."

"Probably not. I wouldn't court-martial you. Just tie you up and rape you for a little while," Anne warned me.

"You can't rape the willing, dear Captain," I reminded her of my willingness as well as her actual military rank.

"Touche. Very well, then I'd spank your bum!" she winked at me now, the tension cut a little bit.

"How many lives did we save?" I quickly changed topics, even though the grin on my face showed that I wouldn't mind a little spanking at her hands ... especially if I got to return the favor.

"Oh, darling, I lost count! You know, I can't wait to meet your fiancee. I think that she and I shall get along capitally. Summer, isn't it? We clearly have the same great taste in men," Anne told me, even as she washed and stroked my cock and balls unexpectedly.

I groaned a little, but Anne soon followed this up by planting her pussy on my face. Then she leaned over and began a sixty-nine with me, clearly using the aforementioned lull in the fighting to her advantage. I had to admit that my main focus was on her bottom, my tongue swiping across her ass to her delight as well as mine. Even so, I didn't neglect her dripping wet snatch too much, if at all.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to last. Just seconds into her orgasm from my oral services, but before I could cum, there was a mad influx of new casualties. They appeared to be the last stand of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. Anne gave me an apologetic shrug before setting her watch down next to me.

"One hour. Stay in bed one bloody hour, and then get your arse up, okay? I want you fresh and sharp, not dead on your feet again. No more of that fainting bollocks. Are we clear?" Anne then ordered me with a kiss and that charming posh accent of hers.

"Yes, ma'am," I beamed despite my obvious worries.

Well, in any case, this would all soon be over, wouldn't it? Most of North Carolina was already in Republican Front hands, with Winston-Salem being one of the last pockets of resistance to our Militia. It was probably the hardest nut to crack, with the plausible exception of Raleigh itself or or Charlotte or Durham. All that remained in the latter city were a few hundred Black Muslim diehards holding Duke University's campus in their hands. They wouldn't last very long at this rate. It wasn't like they or the KKK would coordinate their efforts, was it? This lot was stronger than the morons who we already drove out of Nag's Head, but not by much.

Yeah, we took the countryside first, confident that we could encircle and besiege the cities with an end in sight now. Pretty much all of our holdouts were major urban centers, well, by local standards, anyway. Cut off from the outside world, none of those cities could hold out forever.

Victory was near, though to a field nurse, it always seemed so damn costly.

Chapter 14

I was smack dab in the middle of suturing a patient when I heard her voice. Megan. Damn it, I was trying to work here!

"What do you want, Megan?" I demanded, "I'm working here. Sorry, Beau. That's my ex-wife."

"Really? Damn! I don't know what happened between you, but you're already my hero for doing this and doubly so for having tapped THAT!" Staff Sergeant Beau Barnes chuckled as I finished him up.

Megan blushed at the obvious praise, "I just wanted you to know that there is a hearing about my fate coming up. I'm a civilian and not the only one. They haven't decided what to do with us. Apparently, in most war zones, the women stay at home and away from the action. Not so much here. In any case, at least I have these hunky escorts, right?" she indicated the military police gendarmes that watched her every move.

"Do they know that you're pregnant?" I asked her directly.

"Yes, they do. I hope for leniency for that reason, if nothing else. Especially since I don't know who fathered the baby. It can't be tied to any one Klucker after all, can it?" Megan commented with some sass right then.

"Well, good luck with that. We'll see how many years I can add to your sentence, shall we?" I grinned evilly as Beau walked away, shaking his head.

"Please ... don't. Please testify in my favor. I beg you! For my baby's sake, if not mine! I don't want to go to DC!" she whined now.

"Yet again, we have such opposing desires, no wonder that we didn't last. You don't want to go to DC, but I damn sure want to send you there," I informed her very coldly indeed, "now, excuse me. I've got work to do."

"Please ... Ralph!" Megan cried out as the guards dragged her off, having been patient with her long enough.

"Jesus, Ralph, you really know how to pick 'em!" Aaron chuckled at that.

"Never piss off a hillbilly!" I shrugged.

"Yeah, you and Colonel Lomax both!" Aaron alluded to the fact that our glorious leader was himself a backwoodsman from the hills of West Virginia.

The fighting was now very intermittent, having long spells between outbreaks, and then lasting for hours at a time. The bulk of it was street-to-street, block by block, house-to-house. The Militia simply decided to grind the Klan down and literally smoke them out of one building after another. Captured child soldiers, and there were quite a few of them, were simply disarmed and sent home. They often went home with their mothers, also simply disarmed and dismissed.

Even some fathers, ones clearly civilian conscripts forcibly inducted into the Klan's auxiliaries, were disarmed and emancipated. The Kluckers had clearly been desperate for manpower. The men, however, were required to swear not to take up arms against the Republican Front ever again. No one really had a problem agreeing to that, particularly given how disastrous things were under Klan rule.

"You know, they probably have more guns at home," Dr. Singh noted at mess as we sat down with our hot Irish potato soup.

"Oh, certainly, but probably not as heavy of gear as those bad boys. As long as they don't bear arms against us, who cares what they keep at home? Let 'em keep their shotguns and .22 rifles for hunting and sports. Not to mention self-defense. There's always a risk that as the Klan chain of command begins to unravel, unit discipline could be so bad that they might well turn to rape and plunder in desperation. And we can't be everywhere, can we?" I pointed out to the man.

"But it is a risk, however great or small," Singh persisted.

"Oh, no doubt. There's always risk in life, right?" I expressed my fatalistic acceptance of danger.

"Well, that is certainly true enough," Singh agreed as he dipped his bread into his soup.

"Good idea, that," I followed suit, finding that the bread tasted much better with the broth, bacon, and potatoes added to it, "this is probably still somewhat new and taboo to you, eh?"

"What are you, Canadian? Eh, really? But yeah, as a Sikh, I don't generally eat pork. Including bacon. These are, shall we say, extenuating circumstances? I still wear my turban, though, as you've probably noticed," Singh acknowledged, even as he teased me a little.

"How did you get the name 'Samuel,' though?" I asked him now.

"Christian mother. Long story on that. Yes, I had the choice of religions, and I chose to be Sikh instead of Christian. Humid weather like this, though, can make even the most pious question such a choice. At least while sweltering the long hair, beard, and turban of a man of my faith. The women have that part much easier," Samuel explained.

"Speaking of women, what do you think of Ralph's ex?" Anne asked as she sat down with us and flirted with both of us in a way that made it clear that she was intimate with both of us, too.

"You're fucking both of us, aren't?" Samuel blurted.

"That I am. Shocked?" Anne admittedly freely and playfully.

"Not really. You've never promised either of us fidelity, if I were to guess. You certainly didn't with me. I cannot fault you for wanting to be colleagues and comrades with benefits. It's a lonely war at times. You take companionship like food ... where you can get it," Samuel assured her that he was fine with sharing her, at least for now.

"If you can't be with the one that you love, then love the one that you're with," Aaron expressed that saying.

"Amen to that!" Kara told him in passing before going over to the enlisted tables.

I tried not to think about her recent talk of sleeping with me, something that Aaron and she had in common. They were both eager to have a threesome with me whenever they got a chance. Yeah, they both wanted to fuck me. At once. Or rather, they wanted me to fuck them. I then wondered at my chances of a threesome with Anne and Samuel.

"Yes ... I'm up for a threesome, love, but I don't know how Samuel feels about it," Anne seemed to read my mind.

"No gay stuff. That's all I ask. We'll share you ... but you'll be the focus ... no gay stuff. Agreed?" Samuel urged us.

"Deal from my end," I smiled casually.

"Is that all? Well, love, no one will shove that down your throat, darling man! And while I wouldn't mind watching two men together, I also love the idea of being the 'focus,' as you put it. Of course we'll need some liberty first, some R and R," Anne beamed at the notion of such a threesome.

"Well, in the meantime, dinner's about over, and we have more work to do. More damn unlucky bastards coming in to be sewn up just like those boys at Duke. You heard about what happened at Duke, right?" I announced.

"No, I didn't. What happened, love?" Anne probed.

"It's fallen. A few dozen miserable folk are all that's left of the defenders there. It's all over there. Durham is now the biggest city in North Carolina that we've captured. I suppose that wearing tuxedos in combat wasn't the best move, anyway," I half-seriously joked that the NOI troops really wore tuxedos into battle.

"Excellent news, love!" Anne told me with a steamy kiss, followed by one that she planted on Samuel.

His being a married man hadn't stopped either of them yet. That was between Samuel and his wife. War tended to shake up all of the marriages in some way or other, for better or worse.

I had no way of knowing either way, but while tuxedos weren't practical, neither were hoods and robes, and that didn't stop the dumbasses in the Klan. With any luck, Winston-Salem would be next. Anyway, the news that the Republican Front won the Battle of Durham put us all in a much better mood. It was another sign that Operation Tarheel was drawing to a close.

That would be best for everyone ... including the locals.

Chapter 15

"Yes, I'm afraid that we'll have to triage these. Too far gone and they're enemy besides. Orders are orders," Anne decided, still not feeling great about the idea.

She never did, that much I knew. For that much, for all of our callous talk about the foe, even though they were despicable racist scum, it was against my instincts and my medical ethics to be too comfortable letting anyone die. I could be a cold, heartless bastard sometimes, but it wasn't my default setting by any means.

"Alright, guys. Keep 'em comfortable 'til they pass. Hell will be rough enough for them," Dr. Singh said loudly enough for the wounded to overhear.

"The only Hell at all is on Earth, and we're smack dab in the middle of it. Just my take, you know. That old saying is wrong. There ARE some atheists in foxholes. Well, not literally a foxhole in my case. More like a hospital. Still, yes, we'll be rid of 'em soon enough. No need for torture," I commented, just as Major Courtney Slade entered the hospital.

"Listen up! I have an announcement. The Klan has surrendered. Well, what's left of them. We took about six hundred forty odd prisoners. The rest chose to fall where they stood. Sadly, they killed more than a few of us, but you already know that, not even counting the ones that they wounded.

"This engagement is over. We'll be relocating you guys to a better hospital by the end of tomorrow. You'll need it, because there are also plenty of injured civilians and the regular docs can't handle 'em all," the regimental XO informed us in very blunt language.

"Yes, ma'am," we all answered her.

What else was there to do? I went back to work for now, though in better spirits. The Battle of Winston-Salem might be over, but plenty of folks still needed suturing, blood pressure, fever, pulse, all those things still needed handling. Morphine drips still had to be replaced. Yes, it was a grueling pace, but that was what I signed up for, right? Once I got out of the Militia and got my nursing license back for civilian work, I'd never gripe half as much about the emergency room, not after being a field nurse in a war zone.

"Excuse me, but are you Ralph Walker, ex-husband to Megan Coleman? The widow of Clifford Coleman?" someone with JAG insignia, surrounded by two MPs, asked me now to confirm my identity.

"Second Lieutenant Ralph Henry Walker at your service, sir, or should I call you Captain?" I asked the obvious military lawyer.

"Very well. Come with me," that wasn't a request.

"You are?" I asked him now.

"Captain Juan Gomez, Judge Advocate General's Corps. We need your testimony in the matter of your ex-wife, who was apparently something of a civilian worker and camp follower for the Klan, thanks to her late second husband, Clifford Coleman. Did you know that he held the rank of Klensign in the Klan forces? That's roughly the same rank as you. Equivalent to a butterbar like yourself. Second lieutenant or what the Russians would call junior lieutenant.

"All ranks in the Klan chain of command began with the capitalized 'K' followed by the lower case 'l,' it seems. Except for Imperial Dragon and Imperial Wizard. Klivate instead of private. Klorporal instead of corporal. Klergeant instead of sergeant. Then Klensign, Klieutenant, then Klaptain, Klajor, Klolonel, Kligadier, Kleneral, and Klarshal. After that, they dropped off the 'Kl' and just had Imperial Dragon, the deputy commander, that is, followed by the Imperial Wizard, the rank of the supreme commander.