Until the darkness and rising fever stopped me I had kept pouring the water over Makstutis where he lay, unconscious and unmoving on the ground. Kang floated low and lifeless in the water like a beached log. I checked him once. His pulse was still there but slow and almost imperceptible. As the fearful heat rose within me I lay down in the stream beside him and shivered there as long as I could endure. Then I would get out again and return to my work. Finally, too sick and dizzy to do any more, I crawled to the bank and lay down on my back with my legs in the water to cool off the blood steaming inside me. Then I passed out.
The light flickered closer and waved about over my companions. It came to me and I squinted up feebly, trying to avoid the glare.
"How are they, Dr. Anders?" The voice came from the slope.
"One of them is dead ... a corporal. The Russian and the Sergeant are very bad, unconscious. Dr. Macdonald is awake," Anders said and then, to me, "Do you understand me?"
"Yes, I do," I whispered.
"I am going to inject some serum." He was busy tying a tourniquet of rubber tubing above my elbow to bring out the veins. I felt the needle probing for the collapsed tissues and later the pressure as he pulled it out and stopped the bleeding. He jabbed me again in the biceps.
"You have had your anti-serum and a sedative," he said, leaning close to be sure I heard. "Now you must relax and concentrate on getting well."
With that thought in my mind I went to sleep.
Three days later I was over the worst of it. I had bled again from the kidneys but fortunately the disease had not been severe enough to cause a massive internal hemorrhage that would have choked their filtering mechanism and killed me.