Chapter 5 - The Man Who Counted
Peter Dunn worked behind the counter of an auto-parts store on the edge of Roanoke. He'd traded military boots for sneakers, but he still numbered receipts in the neat block script I remembered from the casualty sheet.
He knew me before I said my name.
“I saw you on the news,” he said, and glanced toward the manager's office. “I don't want trouble.”
“Neither did Mason.”
Peter lowered his head. The sound of a forklift filled the silence.
“I counted the patients,” he finally said. “That was my job. They were yelling for ammunition, ambulances, anything. I had a marker and a clipboard.”
“Do you remember 04:17?”
“I remember two wounded men came together. One wore a gray scarf over his face. Mason carried the other by the shoulders. I wrote his number because the captain yelled for every person moving through the collection point to be identified.”
“Did you tell the inquiry?”
“I did.”
“Then why isn't that in the final report?”
His face changed. “They interviewed me for twenty minutes. They asked if I'd seen Mason go back into the clinic. I said no. They didn't ask if I'd seen him come out before that.”
I understood exactly how an honest answer could be made to perform dishonest work.
Peter rubbed a thumb across the receipt pad. “My wife says I should leave it alone. We finally got the house. My son needs therapy three afternoons a week. People think a soldier should be eager to relive the worst morning of his life for anyone who asks.”
“She's not wrong to protect you.”
“That's not the same as doing the right thing.”
“No. But I won't decide what the right thing costs your family.”
He gave me a number for the original notebook's storage box, not the notebook itself. After the deployment, he'd sent his personal effects to his sister while he was treated for a back injury. He wasn't sure the notebook survived.
As I turned to leave, Peter caught my sleeve.
“One more thing. The list they used for the medals said thirteen people were evacuated.”
“Seventeen were on your sheet.”
“Nineteen,” he corrected. “Two were taken directly to a helicopter. I told them that, too.”
I stared at him.
May you like
“Rachel, if you find that original notebook, don't only count the wounded. Count who got to claim them.”
