Even the Medic Bleeds Red

 A doctor’s clinic is clean: thoroughly sanitised, with white walls pristine as a doctor’s coat, and floors that shone like mirrors. Patients walk in with hope blooming in their chests. Their faith is placed in professionals who know exactly what they’re dealing with, exactly what to do, exactly how it will be done.

    My clinic is never constant: abandoned marshes, makeshift tents, winding roads leading to destroyed cities where the dead have made their home. My patients lie on plains of grass and hope to die, for living is not much better if pain plagues them. The times have changed, they say. They are tired, hungry, clasping onto the ledge of life, dangling above the voracious abyss of death that takes but never gives. The powerful are cruel: they promise glory and deliver destruction. And me? I’m as well-equipped as I can be, but sometimes even that is not enough. I can only pray that they make it home alive.

    This was before they dug those trenches, before they signed those treaties. Now, if someone takes aim at a medic, the Geneva Conventions will cry, “Don’t touch them!”. But not everyone will listen, and no one had listened back then, in a world excited by war. I remembered asking my teacher why I was to leave for the border. The response? “The war requires fresh blood.” At that moment I hated being young.

    There we were, the little group of surveyors and I, following the path to the city–little pawns on a sprawling chessboard who didn’t know any better. We were talking, talking about what a good job we had done, talking about the intel we would feed to our superiors, talking about getting plastered back at base… We laughed about it as another group of surveyors passed by.

    They weren’t wearing our uniforms. It took a few moments for that realisation to hit, and when it did, they opened fire. We scrambled behind the natural architecture, peeking from behind our trees as we lodged bullets into each other’s bodies, one after another. I heard the thumps of figures onto the ground as I clutched my own pistol tightly, watching my fingers tremble around the trigger.

    It didn’t take long for silence to creep onto us. Overhead, I heard the calls of ravens and knew—somehow, though I wasn’t superstitious in the slightest—that our group of five had whittled down to just one. Cautiously, I took my first step forward, back still facing the tree I had used to take cover. I looked around at the roadside casualties: one slumped over, hugging the tree trunk; one sprawled on the floor in front of my tree; one having just made it to safety, only to be sniped in the brain—if it was anywhere else, I might’ve been able to save him. And there was one we had left on the road, lying face down.

    “Ah!” came that universal cry in a foreign language. I froze in my tracks. Someone was still there, waiting to catch the last one alive. At least, it was what it seemed to any other soldier. But I wasn’t there to kill. I’d sworn against it.

    When the wounded soldier saw me step out of the clearing unscathed, he yelled and raised his rifle. In response, I held my hands high and, rather foolishly, dropped my own weapon. The soldier watched it clatter onto the ground, then stared at me with a pained yet confused look. As I approached, he staggered backwards until he found himself pressed against the stone plaque with the street’s name etched proudly into it. I raised my bag of medical tools, but the fearful response didn’t change. Finally, I produced a roll of bandages from the bag, and at last the soldier understood.

    “Why?” He asked as I knelt to examine his leg—bullet to the shin. I didn’t understand him, nor could I answer his question. His eyes drifted to the equipment in my hands: a flask of alcohol, forceps, and more bandages.

    I uncapped the flask and met his eyes. “This will hurt,” I warned, and before he could retaliate, I splashed the liquid onto the gaping wound. The soldier’s hand found its way to my left wrist and gripped it tightly. Despite the pain, I continued to work.

    I sighed with relief as the bullet was forcefully evicted from his flesh. He watched as I patched his wound, wrapping bloodied bandages around the leg. I felt his gaze graze my skin. Strangely, it was not a cold glare, and right there and then, I knew I could leave alive. We fought under different banners, yes, but I had devoted myself to compassion long before this horrible war, from the moment I first committed myself to this work. My teacher would’ve done the same.

    The soldier clasped my hands in a manner I’d never forget. His lips were trembling, but his words were earnest. The phrase he uttered as tears of pain began to evaporate must’ve been “Thank you”. I always wondered why my comrades-in-arms had left him alive—mercy, perhaps. Maybe humans really are empathetic creatures.

    From the distance came a roaring engine. I can’t remember when or how it happened, but by the time I registered its presence, there was nothing I could do. I should have recognised the agitating groan from the rubble, ground into dust under the weight of its wheels, like every life sent off to the front lines. “Stop! It’s me!” My patient seemed to be yelling, but the words had ricocheted off the body of the approaching metal beast. It ground to a silent halt as its head dipped low and began to aim.

    What monster would kill a medic? The answer is quite simple. Every medic dead is twenty killed, every twenty killed is morale lost. In every sense, the soldier was the anti-doctor. But I kept going, as we doctors must. I adhered to Hippocrates’ teachings—treat all impartially, be it friend or foe—though this prospect seems strange in a land fueled by war. My patient’s—no, the enemy soldier’s—grip tightened around my wrist. I forced a pained smile, meeting his eyes for what I knew would be the final time. How laughable this futile display of sympathy was, but how could I help it? I was a medic first and foremost.

    A scalpel cannot mar a tank. What else could I do?

    Brace for impact.