He won't talk, the sergeant says, as though he's some kind of mental doctor. We need to hear what he's got to say. Get him to talk. And then he totters away, off to tend to the other patients, leaving Thomas with a man who looks as though he's doing his best impression of a fish.

Hell. This is not what he signed up for. Medic, he'd said, because he thought that'd be an easy job. He ought to have just dodged draft and gone to prison, for how easy this job has proven to be.

"Alfred?" That's the man's Christian name, isn't it? Perhaps that will work better. Thomas hesitantly touches his forearm. "Can you hear me?"