I blinked blearily at him. I squeezed gritty eyelids together and tried again. It was Sergeant Jimmy Lee, my aidman. "Lee what is it?" My mouth was dry and it was hard to talk.
"Sir, we don't know what's the matter with you. Can you tell us?"
I shook my head and it tried to fall off. Lee propped me up again.
"You've been out of your mind for three days now and running a hell of a fever. I sponged you and gave you APC's. I even gave you a shot of penicillin when we thought you were going to die." His young face screwed up with worry.
"I've still got the fever, haven't I?" I muttered weakly. "It feels like it."
Makstutis came into focus beside Lee. "It's down some, Doc, but your face was red as a tomato and your eyes are still all bloodshot. Your urine was bloody too. Now you've got little red marks, kinda like bruises, on your skin."
"Eyes all bloodshot ... little red marks." Somewhere a circuit snapped shut in my head. "God Almighty! I've got Songho Fever."
"Songho Fever? What's that, Doc?"
"It's called Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever in the States, and it hit a lot of G.I.'s around the Iron Triangle in the Korean War."
Jimmy wasn't too young to remember. He had been in on the tail end of that fight.