"Maybe the 155s can say something back to them if they do."
* * * *
Nail was a little pale, but he was eating and sleeping well.
"Better than I'd've expected," Dr. Kirschbaum said. Valentine didn't think she looked old enough to be a doctor, but wasn't about to ask her for a diploma. "Could be that kidney's in better shape than the triage report says. You should see this."
The doctor led him over to Nail. The Bear lay on a bed now; they'd taken mattresses from the construction huts and moved them into me hospital-along with the generator and a refrigerator that had been holding beer.
"Lieutenant, you've got another visitor," Kirschbaum said.
Nail managed a tired smile. "I'm about visited out, Doc. Unless he's got more of Narcisse's gumbo."
"You need a second nurse to handle your dishes and bedpans as is, soldier."
Nail drained his canteen and handed it to the doctor. "More."
"Do your trick first, Lieutenant."
"What trick is this, Nail?" Valentine asked.
"Check out my toes, sir."
They were wiggling.
"You don't have a battery under here, do you?" Kirschbaum said, pretending to check under Nail's bed.
"Ever treated a Bear before, Doc?" Nail asked.
"I've seen some DOAs. You boys take a lot of killing, judging from the holes. I'll leave you with the lieutenant, Major. Or are you going to ask him for a quickie, too?"
Nail winked.
Valentine swung around the chair next to Nail's bed. "I'm glad you're feeling better. What's in that gumbo?"
"Part of being a Bear."
"This isn't healing, Nail. This is more like regeneration."
"You know Lost & Found, sir? You know why he's called that? He's got me beat. He was dead, like body-getting-cold dead, and he came back. He was in the fraggin' body bag, sir. Zipped up and in a pile. He came to when the gravediggers picked him up. It's like a legend, this story. Sat up and asked his mom for griddle cakes. Three men there had simultaneous heart attacks. He kept the twist tie on the tag they stuck through his ear. We try to keep it quiet. In case we ever get captured, we don't want some Quisling cutting a notch in our arm just to see how quickly it heals."
* * * *
Valentine found Narcisse in the basement of the hospital, pouring honey down the center of loaves of bread, risen and ready to go into the oven. She was organizing the kitchen with the help of one of the pregnant POWs and a former Quisling soldier, one of the three from the captured bunch at the warehouse, who looked about fifteen.
"Where's Hank?" Valentine asked. "I thought he was helping you out."
"He volunteered for the artillery. That woman Kessey came through earlier today, she adopted the boy."
"How's he doing?" Valentine had avoided Hank since the night they broke out of New Columbia.
"He told me he hated his parents. He hopes they're dead."
"No, he doesn't. Would it help if I talked to him?"
"Daveed, I don't know what you did when you went off that night. I don't want to know. I think it'd be best if Hank, he never know either. You tell him his parents, they run away."
"What makes you think they didn't?"