Excerpt of The Surgeon's Rescue Mission by Dianne Drake

NIGHTTIME. When had that happened? David Gentry raised

himself up on an elbow and swatted at the mosquito buzzing around his face. It was the size of a hummingbird. He'd been lying out here in the jungle for who knew how long, sleeping. Or more likely unconscious. The mosquitoes could have feasted off him for hours by now. Maybe days, since he had no idea how long he'd been there.

He took a swing at another blood-sucking predator. Surely he must have had a malaria shot, but he didn't know. In fact, all he knew right now was his name, and he wasn't sure enough about that to wager on it.

He moved to sit up, winced, then went back to reclining, propped up one one elbow. Now it was coming back in pieces. Someone kicking him...the crack of his bones. That's something he did remember. Two or three ribs, he decided as he probed the tender area. Left side, and he would definitely wager on the bruise there, even though he couldn't see it in the dark. But he felt it — soreness starting just under his shoulder and stopping just above his waist. There were probably three or four broken ribs, judging from the feel of it.

He tried to get up. Easier said than done. His shoulder hurt, too. The sting of it was only just now fighting its way through the pain of his ribs. It was either get up, or stay down, maybe for ever. David sat up, moving cautiously for fear he might puncture a lung on a jagged bone edge.

Good. He finally remembered something useful. Broken ribs could equal punctured lung could equal death. "A punctured lung and me without a chest tube," he grunted, making it to a full sitting position.

Just sitting there on the damp ground hurt worse than he'd thought pain could ever hurt. He dragged his forearm across his face to wipe away the sweat. "So what's a few broken ribs and a bullethole?"

Gingerly, David prodded his shoulder just to make sure the wound was real and not another delusion. And there it was. A sticky mess. A painful, sticky mess. "That's why you've got the fever, Davey," he said, wiping his brow again. The ooze of infection in his shoulder from the bullet was probably the worst thing going on inside him right now, and if he didn't get it treated soon... Unless one of his ribs had stabbed him through the lung. Then either way — infection or collapsed lung — it wouldn't matter. He'd be dead.

And the call of the damp ground below him was getting louder. Just another hour, Davey. One more hour then you'll feel well enough to get up and walk out of here.

Another hour's sleep did sound good. Just one...

Still sitting upright, he was just too tired now to go all the way back down to the ground. Wasted effort, really, for a short nap. His eyes started to flutter closed, and he let out a long, exhausted sigh. Maybe he would sink back down after all. The ground wasn't so hard. Nice patches of moss... Just an hour...

But he wanted a drink first. A sip of water then off to bed with him! Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite! He reached over to his bedside stand to grab a glass...but the only thing his hand clamped hold of was a heap of soggy leaves. Immediately, David snapped his eyes open, trying to hold onto the little bit of reality he had left to him. Sleep meant sure death this time. It didn't take a doctor to figure out that he was too weak, too dehydrated, too infected to last the night.

It was a prognosis any first-year medical student could make. And at thirty-six, he was, what? Sixteen years past his first year of medical school? He tried to remember, tried to figure the simple math, but his head was too fuzzy to think.

David looked up at the canopy of palms and bamboos. By the light of the moon he could see the shadows, if not the actual trees. An evergreen forest. That, he could remember. Back home in Toronto, the trees in his mother's yard were deciduous. Another stupid thing to remember. Only a delirious man would sit here classifying trees, he thought, laughing out loud. "And if there are any of you tree snakes up there in those evergreen trees, you stay away from me, you hear? Mosquitoes are enough." Were there any vaccinations against tree snakes? He couldn't remember.

"OK, Davey, you've got to do better than this if you want to get yourself out of here. So quit talking to the snakes." Cobras and kraits and vipers. All deadly.

He looked up again, imagining all kinds of glowing eyes looking back at him. "Focus, Davey. That's the only way you're going to make it out of here." But on what? He didn't have anything in reserve. Not even an ounce of strength left to muster.

Something rustled in the brush next to him, and he turned to see what was there. Like he could see anything in the dark. Your head going wonky again, he thought. Or a snake.

The thought caused him to shudder, which set off a round of pain shooting from his ribs straight through to his brain. He clamped his arm over his rib cage to support it.

"Get it together, Davey," he warned himself once the initial rip of the pain was over. "Now, or never." He glanced sideways at the brush next to him. Maybe if he could just grab hold of something, he might be able to pull himself to his feet... Mosses, orchids, ferns. No pulling power in those. Even though it was dark and he couldn't see what was surrounding him, he had a vague recollection of what he'd seen before he'd gone fuzzy the last time, and nothing he could dredge up from his bleariness was sufficient to grab hold of. He had to focus on this or he'd lie right back down and die.

And David surely did not want to die. Not here. Not now. Not like this. He'd walked so many miles in this condition because he wanted to live, and that was something simple he could remember.

"Damn," he muttered, trying to wipe out the image of his own death. "So find a rhododendron bush, Davey. That'll do it." Big, woody, deep roots — grabbing onto a rhododendron might work. They were all over the place, low-lying under the trees, thriving in the shade. He should be able to pull himself up if he had the strength to hold on. If he had the strength to hoist his entire body weight. If he had the strength to walk once he was upright.

David looked up again to make sure those glowing eyes weren't getting closer. Never mind the ground predators. Monkeys he could deal with. Even the deer and the kouprey. But now he was imagining wild dogs and tigers and rhinos.

Worst of all, bats. He'd just as soon meet a tiger as a bat. And the bats in Dharavaj were almost as big as the tigers.

He was back in Dharavaj, wasn't he? Not in Cambodia any more?

"Time to assess. The doctor needs water." He ran his dry tongue over his cracked lips, emphasizing just how much.

"And the doctor needs antibiotics." His scorching forehead was the testament to that. He didn't have to touch it to feel just how feverish it was. He knew. "But most of all, the doctor needs to get out of here." If that happened, and if, by some miracle, he did make it back to his little clinic outside Kantha, he might stand a fighting chance of recovery.

Of course, he could simply lie back down and wait until daylight and hope to wake up again. Yes, that was it. Sleep for the remainder of the night and start all over again in the morning. Seeing how to get home would be so much easier.

David sank back to the damp ground, his head resting on a pillow of moss, and shut his eyes. "Until morning," he murmured wearily, as the dark cloud of oblivion started to roll back over him once more. "Only until morning." He heaved a deep sigh, pleased with the decision.

"Morning..." In the morning he would... He didn't remember. Couldn't remember. Surgery? Did someone need surgery? He thought so, but he couldn't find his work schedule. Another amputation. Another patient on the brink of death! That was it. But who?

The name wouldn't come up out of the depths, and he couldn't sleep until he remembered. "Think, Davey..." He could almost see his little operating room. And, yes, that was him standing over the operating table. But who was on the table? He still couldn't tell... "Don't start the procedure until you verify the patient," he warned himself.

But he was starting anyway, because his patient was dying, and he had to do something to save him. Right now! The scalpel was in his hand, and he was pulling back the sheet to make the first cut.

The sheet finally came off the patient's face. "No!" he choked, looking down at himself. He was the patient!

Suddenly, David's eyes popped open and he struggled into a sitting position. Out of breath, he reached out into the dark for an handhold that would help him to his feet. And he found it. A bush, mere inches away. Maybe a rhododendron, maybe not. He couldn't tell from the feel of it, didn't know if it would be his saving grace tonight. Or his last, failing hope.

He steadied himself then pulled, and his first effort raised him mere inches off the ground. "Gotta do this another way," he grunted, realizing how much the next try was going to hurt. Getting himself over on his knees meant putting weight on the shoulder where the bullet was lodged. If he failed, and if he fell back down face first, he risked driving one of those broken ribs right through his lung.

Resetting himself for his second try, David gritted his teeth to the pain as he turned over and positioned himself on his hands and knees. If not for the fact that he was already so dehydrated, he would have been sweating much more than he was. Sweating profusely and shaking. He worked his hand through the branches to find the biggest. Everything, so far, was spindly. Too spindly. Like the way his legs felt.

He found a handhold. Nice, thick, sturdy...and it slipped right thought his sweaty, shaky hand.

It was early June, the height of the hot season, and though the temperature was probably climbing up to 38 degrees Celsius now, the rest of his shaking was coming from the chill that results of a spiked fever and infection. And exposure. His body systems were shutting down, and confused over how to go about doing that. He was hot, he was cold, he was delirious, he was rational. It didn't matter which of those came to pass now because they all felt the same. Miserable.

David took hold of a sturdy branch, shut his eyes tight, forcing himself to concentrate on holding on. Then he dragged in a deep, ragged breath, and pulled, screaming at the top of his lungs and expelling all his reserved oxygen as he pulled himself up. Inch by agonizing inch, he ascended, pulling tighter and tighter on the bush until, amazing, he was there. He was upright, and it surprised him because his two jelly-like legs held him up.

"Good job," he panted, trying to figure out the next part of his plan. Get up and...and, what? That's as far as he'd gone. So, get up and...stay up. That was it. Easily enough said, and actually easier done than he'd anticipated, as he pulled himself through the bush to the first tree he found. Then he hugged that tree like he'd never hugged anything, or anyone, before. Simply hugged it. He threw his arms around it like it was a the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen...

He had seen her once. Not his delusion. Stunning. Black hair, dark eyes. And he was holding onto her now until the wobbling in his knees subsided, the spinning in his head slowed down and he was able to draw normal breath again. She needed an orchid in her hair.

"OK," he said to the treetrunk, squeezing her out and reality back in. "Now, let's see what we can do about getting out of here." Pulling back from the tree, he took a few steps, and another few steps, one at a time, until his legs were back under him. In the dark, in an area he didn't know, he had absolutely no idea which way to go to get out. But it didn't matter. This would have been the place he would have died tonight, and anyplace else was better than there.