The First Wave by James R. Benn Page B

saw Doctor Dunbar treating a couple of stretcher cases for cuts from flying glass. Nurses and orderlies were running around like ants from a stirred up nest. There was a feeling of controlled hysteria in the air as they did their jobs with eyes still wide from fear and shock. For their first time under fire, they weren’t doing too badly. It wasn’t my first and yet I was glad I hadn’t bawled like a baby when the bombs kept coming and coming.
    I opened Kaz’s door. His eyes were closed and he was so still I thought for a second he was dead.When I finally saw his chest rise and fall, I let out my breath. I was relieved, but at the same time amazed anyone could be doped up enough to sleep through an air raid. I left Kaz to his dreams and asked a nurse for directions to Ward C.
    I headed out of the building, across the courtyard, and into a separate brick structure that jutted out from a tin-roofed white washed stucco building. A sign announced it was a MEDICAL CORPS SUPPLY DEPOT. The modern brick wing had bars on the windows and a small sign that said WARD C. It must have been an Algerian jailhouse until Uncle Sam showed up. There was a guard at the door who saluted.
    I entered the reception area. A corridor led off it with doors on either side. The fresh Army-green paint job’s smell mingled with the odor of strong disinfectant. A nurse sat at a desk working on charts. I asked if there was a French patient named Dupree in the joint. There was: Jerome Dupree, Georgie’s kid brother. I walked down the hall to his room and took a deep breath before I knocked. I’d brought news like this to families a few times before. I didn’t like it much.
    I rapped twice and opened the door. A young kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen at most, with a mop of thick, dark hair nearly jumped out of his bed. Or would have if he hadn’t been chained to it. He had manacles on his ankles attached by a chain that looped through the steel bed frame. The windows were barred and if he was going anywhere, the whole bed was going with him. His arm was in a sling, his head was bandaged, and his eyes were wide with fear. But I wasn’t the person he expected and the look of fear disappeared.
    “Who are you?” he asked. He spoke slowly, as if figuring out the right order for the words as he went along.
    “Billy Boyle is my name. You’re Georges’s brother, right?”
    At the sound of his brother’s name he brightened up and started jabbering. “Yes, did he send you? How did you know I was here? Have you been looking for me? I have been waiting for you three days!” His accent was pretty thick and I wondered if I had misunderstood him.
    “What do you mean, waiting for me?”
    “I did not know it would be you, Monsieur Boyle, but Georges told me he was meeting with some American officers and would put them in touch with me.”
    “We were on our way to you and the other rebels, but—”
    “No, no, not about the coup. About the notebook! Did not Georges tell you everything? There is not much time!”
    I was confused. What notebook? I just wanted to get delivering the bad news over with. I tried to remember what my Dad used to say. Tell them it’s bad news first thing. Then tell them to sit down. Then tell them. I had watched and listened to him deliver the bad news dozens of times before I had to do it myself, alone. I’m not sure his advice helped, but at least it gave me a plan, and maybe that’s all he meant it to do.
    “Jerome, back up a second. I have some bad news for you.” There. He was already sitting down, so time to deliver.
    “What . . . ?” His mouth stayed open, a confused and scared look on his face. His eyes darted around the room, as if he were waiting for someone else to come in.
    “Georges is dead. He was shot the morning of the invasion.”
    “No.” His head sank back into the pillow. “No, no. He was supposed to meet the Americans, not fight them. You must be mistaken.”
    “I’m not mistaken, Jerome. He did meet