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With a sigh, Wilson put his stethoscope back in his medical bag.
“I’ve done all I can do for him, Sir,” he said to Hogan. “The rest is up to him; head injuries are always touch-and-go, and his pulse is still weak. If he regains consciousness within the next 24 hours, he’s got a good shot at a full recovery.”
Carter glanced at Wilson, trying not to think about what would happen if he didn’t.
“We’ll have to spin some story about how he got that concussion so that Klink won’t suspect anything when he doesn’t show up for roll call, but we’ll worry about that later,” Hogan sighed. “Thanks, Wilson.”
“Let me know if his condition changes,” the medic instructed, as he left Hogan’s quarters.
Kinch cleared his throat a couple minutes later, breaking the somber silence.
“Colonel, I should get down to the radio room and relay everything he found out to London.”
“You do that,” Hogan said. “I’m going to make sure that Hochstetter isn’t going to ferret around.”
“I’ll go with you, Kinch,” Carter offered. “Sometimes, I’m the only one who can read his chicken scratch…”
The tech sergeant trailed off; he, Kinch, and Hogan had moved to leave the quarters, but all three of them paused as they realized they were one short.
“LeBeau?” Hogan asked.
The French corporal hadn’t moved; he was still staring down at his English counterpart, still lying motionless on the bottom bunk.
A bandage was around Newkirk’s head, and the slow rise and fall of his chest was the only indication that he was alive. LeBeau had removed his gloves, gently placing two fingers on Newkirk’s wrist to make sure that the weak pulse at least remained constant.
“Louis…?” Carter asked.
“It should have been me, not him,” the Frenchman replied, bitterly. “We only exchanged places because I had to cook that meal for Klink.”
Hogan looked away for a moment, trying to gather the proper words, but Kinch beat him to it; Kinch walked back inside, placing a hand on the corporal’s shoulder.
“That doesn’t make it your fault, Louis,” he assured him. “You know how missions work around here; sometimes, we need a last-minute substitution. And do you think we’d be any better off if it was you lying there and Peter going out of his mind with worry?”
LeBeau exhaled and shook his head. At least he was in a calm panic; Newkirk, on the other hand, would’ve been in a far, far more frantic state.
“Look, LeBeau…” Hogan now said. “If you want to keep watch over Newkirk, that’s probably a good idea—let us and Wilson know if there’s any change, alright?”
“D’accord.”
As they left, LeBeau pulled the chair over from Hogan’s desk to sit beside his wounded friend, whispering soft words of encouragement to him in both English and French.
And though he did not awaken, Newkirk did turn his head ever so slightly in LeBeau’s direction.
And LeBeau took that as a hopeful sign—there was still a lot of fight left in Peter Newkirk.