"Carry out your orders, trooper," snapped Ella. It was hard enough dealing with a line of wounded when everything in her wanted to tend to the wounds in front of her. Debating with Major Samuels had made it worse. She hoped that feeling the same torment was the reason he wanted to take every case to surgery, although she suspected that he was more driven to escape from the sight of so many wounded in one place. The sooner she got to the end of the line, the sooner she could go help the patients assigned to her, even if all she was going to be able to do for some of them would be to close their eyes, like the trooper being carried away.
Ella reached Dick's litter. Gutshot, and already fevered. Samuels had stopped arguing about abdomen wounds, after she let him take one to surgery. She didn't know what Major Martin had said to him, but he hadn't stayed in the surgery very long that time. She signaled the litterbearers to take him to the left tent.
Major Samuels was sending the next scout to the left tent, but she didn't notice. Bo was unconscious in the next litter, with bandages around his waist. There was pink-tinted dampness in the bandages over the stomach. He was fevered, but not as much as Dick had been.
"Knife or bullet?" she asked Scarlet, looking at the wound that had penetrated the stomach.
"Knife." Scarlet's answer was curt.
"He'll be okay, thanks to the field medicine you did," responded Ella, trying to reassure herself as much as Scarlet. Major Samuels had sent the last few scouts to the left hand tent, so the line was gone. "I'll take Bo to surgery."
Two hours later, while Ella was tending the wounded, Major Martin brought Bo into her territory. "All stitched up, according to your orders, Ma'am," he said, bowing slightly. "I would have put him with the other surgical cases, but I thought you would want him to be under your care."
"Thank you," replied Ella. "I've got another half-dozen in here who are likely to survive."
"Have you got enough helpers to tend to everyone?"
"Yes. Once the scouts have rested, a few of them will be here to assist."