LeBeau soon sent everyone away so that his patient could rest.

Newkirk felt a little better with a cup of tea in him, even though it was embarrassing that the new senior POW had to help him drink it. He had tried taking the mug, but his ruddy hand was shaking, and even when he wrapped both hands around it, he couldn't slow down the wobbles. The Colonel looked at him kindly, though. Even though it felt very chancy, like the Yank might want something in return, Newkirk decided he could accept help because LeBeau seemed to think it was alright. He could deal with any fallout when he was better.

The warmth of the tea settled nicely in his belly, but he couldn't stop shaking. "So cold," he told LeBeau through chattering teeth.

"Oui," LeBeau said. "Your fever is climbing. That's why you're shaking. I will find you another blanket."

He left and returned with Hogan by his side. The Colonel looked down at the shaking man and smiled tightly—then reached up to his bunk and pulled down a blanket. It was newer and thicker than any of the blankets the rest of the men had. He handed it to LeBeau, who snugged it around Newkirk.

"Merci, mon Colonel," LeBeau said, sitting on the bunk beside Newkirk. "Say thank you, Pierre."

"Thank you, Pierre," Newkirk replied sleepily. Hogan laughed and shook his head as he left the room.

As his fever climbed, Newkirk felt worse and worse. And as his condition deteriorated, so did his demeanor. Before long, he was lashing out at LeBeau about everything and anything, with a litany of complaints:

"You got leaves in my tea."

"I don't want that."

"No, I don't need your Granny's ruddy remedy."

"Ow! You burnt my tongue with the soup!"

"I'm not hungry."

"My head hurts."

"It's too bright in here."

"It's too dark in here."

"I'm hot."

"I'm cold."

"This bed's too hard. My bunk is better."

"My ear hurts. What? I can't hear you!"

"My arse hurts from lying here."

It went on for hours—bouts of griping alternating with brief snatches of sleep.

Through it all, LeBeau had one answer: "Go to sleep, Pierre. I'll be right here. Rest your head, rest your body, and rest your heart."

He said those words firmly but quietly, over and over, and finally lulled his friend to sleep. When LeBeau saw Newkirk's chest rising slowly and rhythmically, heard his breaths softening, he leaned his own head back and looked up in relief. He'd never seen anyone who could fight sleep like Pierre, or who needed rest more.

LeBeau himself had dozed off by midday. He was leaning against the bed post enjoying a pleasant dream when a commotion in the main barracks room interrupted visions of his ex-wife Danielle in her silky lingerie.

LeBeau opened his eyes and sighed as the door to Hogan's quarters flew open and Wilson stepped in.

"How's he doing today? Let me have a look," he bellowed.

At that, Newkirk jolted upright in his sleep, slamming his head into the bed boards above him and protesting, "What? What? I didn't take it!" He was so agitated that he fell out of bed.

LeBeau stood over him sighing as Hogan and Kinch crowded into the room.

"I probably should have mentioned that he doesn't wake up easily, Wilson," Kinch apologized.

"He wakes up like a bear that just stepped on a hornet's nest," LeBeau said. "I've never seen anything like it. Pierre, tell me if you're bleeding again."

Newkirk, even in his current sick state, had the decency to keep his head down. "Turn your head, LeBeau. It's just a ruddy nosebleed, but you're not going to like the look of it." As LeBeau moved away, Newkirk glared up at Wilson. "Who are you, again?"

"Wilson, U.S. Army Medical Corps," the medic said. "What the heck are you doing on the floor? It's not clean."

"Oh, I was looking for a pin I dropped. What do you think I'm doing? You flung the door open and gave me a bleeding heart attack."

By now, Hogan and Kinch were helping Newkirk back into bed. "What's with LeBeau?" Hogan asked Kinch quietly.

"Him? He can't stand the sight of blood," Kinch replied. He was holding his handkerchief to Newkirk's nose and shaking his head.

This is going to be quite the team, Hogan thought. He had done his homework on LeBeau, too, and was certain he would be an asset, but fear of blood was important new information. "How does that work in wartime, exactly? Blood is frequently part of the equation."

"I was a mechanic," LeBeau snarled. "Burns, yes. Slips, trips and falls, yes. Not much blood. Anyway, I'm fine. I can look after myself."

Where have I heard that before? Hogan asked himself.

Wilson pushed his way forward, shoving Kinch out of the way. "Alright, let me have a look. Yep. That's a nosebleed."

"Ruddy genius, you are," Newkirk muttered.

Wilson continued, oblivious. "Bleeding can be prevented in many ways. One way is by not falling out of bed. You should try that. How's the fever?" He stuck a thermometer in Newkirk's mouth. "Under your tongue. And don't bite so hard. These things can break, and you don't want to ingest mercury and die."

"How do you know?" Newkirk grumbled.

The room went silent as Newkirk endured the temperature check. Wilson was scribbling notes in his file, and Kinch was sitting with LeBeau to make sure he didn't fall over too. Hogan shifted uncomfortably in the middle of the room, taking it all in and feeling uncertain about what to do.

Uncertainty did not sit well with Colonel Robert E. Hogan. He was a decisive man of action and he was trying to build a team here. The world of medicine and doctors, even unqualified ones like Wilson, puzzled him. Apart from the usual childhood assortment of colds, measles, chicken pox, and a broken arm and that appendectomy when he was 20, he'd hardly been in a sickroom a day in his life. He was puzzled every time he heard LeBeau telling Newkirk, "You need your rest." Rest? What did that mean, anyway?

"One-oh-two," Wilson said. "It's down a little from this morning, but it'll go back up by night time. Stay in bed. Take more aspirin, and wipe that blood off your face, willya? It looks like dirt." He wrinkled his nose. This camp was filthy, and if there was one lesson he had absorbed in his medic training, it was that dirt was bad for sick and injured people. He wasn't sure of all the details, but he knew that much.

"Okay, bye," Hogan said, hustling Wilson out the door. "I'm not sure about that guy," he said to no one in particular. "He reminds me of this small-time crook I once knew, a guy named Scotty. And he looks pretty old to be a soldier."

"He's a prat," Newkirk said nasally from behind Kinch's handkerchief. "My nose hurts. Could I have some tea, LeBeau?" He lowered the handkerchief as he said it, causing LeBeau to blanch.

"I'll get it right now," LeBeau said, making a beeline for the door. "When I get back, you can explain how tea helps a sore nose."