КатеринаК

→"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

→"I don't blame them." Carl slipped the field glasses into a leather case, closed it, and slung it behind him, then stood, his hand resting on the butt of the machine pistol at his side. "They've worked well and deserve a rest. You can tell them that we'll be heading back as soon as we've swept this area."

→"May I tell the men that we're returning to Base after this operation? They're getting a little restless. We've been out a month now and they don't like getting too close to the contaminated areas."

→"What is it?"

→The sergeant hesitated. "Sir?"

→"Yes, sir. The radiation is dangerous further on."

→"No. If our intelligence is correct they'll be glad to see us, but I don't believe in taking any chances." Carl stared briefly through his binoculars. "This is about as far north as we can go, isn't it?"

→"You expect trouble, sir?"

→His sergeant, a short, stocky, scar-faced man, saluted, yelled harsh orders to a waiting knot of men, then turned back to Carl.

→"Right, Janson. Send off the other column."

→Carl Hammond stood on the brow of a low hill and stared through field glasses at a thin line of cyclists moving slowly along an overgrown road. He was tall, with close-cropped dark hair, broad shouldered and thick-limbed. Arrogance rested on his heavy features and his mouth, thin and cruel, betrayed his driving ambition. There was nothing soft about Carl, nothing gentle. He was a realist and, during the past three years, had lived more than all his previous thirty. He lowered the glasses as the last of the cyclists vanished around a bend in the road.

→Chapter Two

→He didn't want to meet the accusation in Collins's eyes.

→John slowly peeled off the rubber gloves, patched now and worn, slipped off the mask, futile pandering to almost forgotten Gods of hygiene and, hanging his gown on a peg, turned towards the door.

→A young man, a farmer, one who had grown up on the land and who, by his skill and experience, could have grown the food essential to the community. Dead so that others could receive the psychological benefit of telling their troubles to a doctor.

→Lack had killed him. Lack of staff, of drugs, of equipment and time. Mostly lack of time, caused solely by the crowded waiting room, the sheer necessity of taking each in their turn, the time wasted on seeing patients who hadn't a hope in hell of direct benefit—and because of that a man had died.

→John could do something about the jaundice, nothing about the varicose veins because the woman refused to allow an operation. He booked the mastoid for the theater, told the mother of the boy with rickets to give him plenty of milk and green vegetables, shook his head over the ruined eyes. Nothing for the glandular trouble; the diabetes—there was no insulin; the cancer—too far gone for operation; the fatty heart. Nothing for the radiation sores, but amputation for the gangrene. Operation for the cataracts; no drugs for the fever; nothing for the tuberculosis. The man with appendicitis...

→But the man was dead.

→John felt sick as he stared down at the limp figure on the improvised operating table. The operation was such a simple thing—with the correct equipment and staff. The anesthetic, the incision, the sutures and clamps, the scalpels, the forceps, the swabs, the brilliant lights and attentive nurses. Then the removal of the inflamed organ, the cleansing, the tying, sewing and final dressing. A. few hours' work, less than that, followed by ten days hospitalization. As simple as having a tooth removed, as blowing a nose, as trimming an inconvenient toenail.

→The hospital wasn't geared for emergency operations.