She stayed against him. Her mother had been dead longer; she’d been cold. She’d exsanguinated. The word stayed with Mary. Yes, Frank was warm. There—wait. Was she imagining? In the left corner of her lips, she felt a brief movement, the slightest possible. It stopped. She waited. There it was again, an upward bump.

He had a pulse.

She pulled back and looked at him. His eyes were fixed, the pupils dilated.

“Frank!” She shouted this.

He was catatonic—not any blink, just fixed.

Rex, though, moved. She heard it. Snow crunched. There he was, trying for an elbow to raise himself. His eyes popped open.

“Where’s the fire?”

She went to him. “Rex, it’s Mary.” He cringed, not recognizing her, and then his eyelids fluttered down.

Right beside him, Jeff wasn’t breathing. She saw it. She didn’t even check for a pulse. She tilted his head back, took his nose, and pushed her breath into his airway until she saw his chest rise. She gave another breath and listened. There was nothing. She started compressions. She pumped and counted.

She didn’t hear the Blackhawks. It wasn’t until a medic took her hands off Jeff that she understood help had come. They had Frank on a stretcher. Rex was sitting up. The medic kept saying something, shouting in Mary’s ear. Mary leaned closer to hear. She went too far, and the rope she’d forgotten around her ankle tripped her; she fell into soft snow, unharmed again.

11.   WATCHMAN, WHAT IS LEFT
OF THE NIGHT

It was near 0200 when Mary left the hospital for her hut. The mountains, ghost-alabaster from the half-moon, took up positions around the base, creating an outer cordon. Bagram looked like prison after dark, watched by guard towers, surrounded by barriers. Mary smelled salt and fuel as she walked.

Jeff was dead. Rex had a broken leg, broken arm, and busted ribs. Frank’s condition was critical. She looked calm, so they let her keep up with all the steps. Ultrasound found minimal bleeding in his abdomen, CAT scan showed his brain was concussed, and surgery to relieve the pressure had come in the golden hour after first impact. An R.N., a major who’d served in the Balad hospital, sat with her during the operation and explained that Frank’s brain in his head, hitting the ledge, had been like a melon in a cannonball slamming into concrete. Most this nurse had seen were from IEDs, but in Afghanistan, falls caused them too. Without the snow, Frank would have been smashed dead. They called it traumatic brain injury. On the best end, it was no worse than hockey or football. At the worst end, it was vegetative. Frank seemed to be in the middle. So much would depend on the next twenty-four hours.