Chapter Eight- Recovery and Bridge Recon
Harry groggily woke up to find himself in a bed. He looked at his surroundings, and saw that his bedside table had his glasses, a large glass of water and some painkillers on it. Looking around, he saw some people over by a bed further away from his and it took him a moment to realise that one of the people around it was John.
"John, what happened?" Harry asked the doctor before clearing his throat and taking a sip of water as he began moving out of the bed.
"It appears that you were in some kind of fight because when you returned, you emerged from the back of a truck that you managed to steal and collapsed onto the ground next to it." John said in exasperated tone before continuing. "I don't understand magic but you must have used a lot of it as you brought back lots of enemy vehicles when you used what I believe you call a portkey. I'm just grateful that you didn't put them on the soldiers you 'recruited' as I believe you would've been in a coma for a few days at least had you done that. And I reached that conclusion despite my lack of understanding of magical health."
Harry listened intently to John's explanation of how he ended up in his own base's medical wing, which was just a series of tents on the outskirts of the harbour. He looked up at John as pondered what to ask next. "So can I get back to action then doctor?" He asked with some hope in his voice.
"I can tell that you want me to allow you to get back to fighting Gene's Army however, while I will discharge you from the bed, I will order that you're placed in reserve for a couple of days. And absolutely no using magic until at least three days from now." John said sternly.
"Aren't I commanding you?" Harry asked with a frown on his face.
"When it comes to the medical side of things, I outrank everybody on this base."
"Fine, I'll follow the doctor's orders." Harry said with an almost angry sigh.
Harry and John walked towards the command center that they and the others had built up over the previous few days. The command center was located in an old warehouse, with a reinforced cellar and newly manufactured and captured anti-aircraft guns ringed the building. More anti-aircraft guns were emplaced around the base with some dug in to help stop ground attacks and others were placed on rooftops. Squads patrolled the harbour base with some sense of trepidation as Harry and John entered the command center.
The Command center was teeming with activity. Roy, Johnathan, Natalia and several soldiers were studying a map of the entire peninsula while Ivan and Kurt were going over their current inventory. Other resistance soldiers sat in pairs, giving out orders and recieving information about various locations around the peninsula. Elsewhere in the room, medical personnel and engineers discussed the possibility of acquiring more materials to help maintain the base.
"Welcome back Boss!" One of his men said saluting Harry upon seeing him.
Roy, Johnathan, Natalia, Ivan and Kurt looked up from their current activities and saw Harry, who was looking slightly worse for wear, and John, who was escorting him. "Welcome back Harry. Feeling better are we?" Roy asked optimistically.
Harry responded by looking at John with a frown. John either didn't notice or simply didn't care about Harry's reaction to the question and spoke to Roy. "As the chief doctor and medical expert on this base, I have decided that Harry should not be undertaking strict and arduous tasks. He can go on missions but only to supervise and carry items that others bring to him."
"Can he still use his magic to assist missions?" Kurt asked.
"I'm not an expert on magic but as he expended a lot of power yesterday, I've said no to him using magic for a minimum of three days at least. I think that we do need to find a wizarding doctor who'll be able to keep a better eye on the health of Harry and any wizarding people who join us."
"Right so, that means we need to find someone who is on the island, who's willing to help or can be persuaded to help us, or we send a call out to friendly groups." Roy said, knowing that they needed to get help for Harry and anyone else who is a wizard who joined them.
"I do believe that we have got some good news to share Roy before we talk about what missions need completing today." Ivan said, his voice heavily accented and optimistic.
"Indeed we do." Roy replied before pointing at the map. "Harry was able to get information on a bridge between this side of the peninsula and the eastern side. Apparently, whatever we're looking for is in a harbour on that side."
"Not that I'd let some broad sweet talk me into a trap." Kurt cheekily commented which caused a bout of laughter from pretty much everyone present except Harry and Natalia. Kurt continued to speak cheekily "I mean, way to go Harry but isn't she a little young? Suppose we could whisk you away to France after this is all over."
Harry looked at Kurt with a frown on his face and his arms crossed. Natalia meanwhile looked as though she was going to shoot him.
"It's a joke. Relax, okay?" Kurt said to them, his laughter beginning to die down.
"Let's just get on with the briefing, shall we?" Natalia asked with Harry nodding along with her suggestion.
Roy managed to calm himself down to respond, "Sure, let's get on with it." Within seconds, the others had managed to stop laughing. "Right, so thanks to the information that Harry managed to obtain, we know where we need to go and how best to get there."
Harry spoke up, "I was told that there's a road bridge heading to the harbour and that whatever it is we're looking for is going to be at the harbour. I wish I knew more than that but that is the best I could find out about. We were able to find the rail bridge, right?"
"We were indeed able to find it. We just haven't got to close to it yet to conduct a proper reconnaissance." Roy replied to Harry. "We just expect to find it guarded."
"That rail bridge is the closest one to the harbour and the only one that directly leads there. I have found out that there are a couple of other bridges further south in the peninsula but they're more or less roads to nowhere as we'd have to hit multiple strong points before we could turn north and head there." Kurt pointed out, having highlighted a few grid references where the other bridges were suspected to be and the roads that were meant to lead further eastwards.
"Well, standing around isn't going to help us look at this bridge. What are our orders, boss?" Ivan asked eagerly, wanting to get to the other side of the peninsula as soon as possible.
"Johnathan and Natalia will lead the reconnaissance team to the harbour. Ivan, I require you to begin setting up a convoy with Roy. When we cross over to the other side, I want a base camp established there so we can supply our efforts on that side and also give us more room to hide from Gene's army." Harry said to the Russian man before turning to Kurt. "Kurt, look for a suitable site for a base on the other side of the peninsula and keep us posted on the movements of Gene's army. I'm coming along on the mission, only as a observer otherwise I think John will break my leg just so I can recover from my exhaustion."
"Right everyone, gear up and move out." Roy said to the group who all promptly began preparing for their missions. Roy then muttered to himself, "Why do I have to be the organiser? Can't I get involved in the fighting for just once? I am a Green Beret after all."
Johnathan and Natalia approached the bridge from two different directions. Johnathan and his squad approached with a truck via a side road and Harry was in the back of the truck, listening in on his and Natalia's squads progress. Natalia and her squad had parked their truck further away from the bridge and were overlooking the area from atop a small cliff that shielded parts of the railway line.
"I see about four guards patrolling in front of the bridge and it sounds like there are two more standing on the bridge itself. What do you see Natalia?" Johnathan asked quietly after telling her about his observations.
"I see two trucks parked side by side on the bridge and beyond them, I see three guards patrolling behind the trucks and then about five more in a small clearing before there's more cliffs. There are a few buildings either side of the rail line and, unfortunately, I can't see into them or over the other side of them. For all I know, there could be another dozen guards in those buildings." Natalia replied to Johnathan. "Go and check on Harry, see if he's alright."
Johnathan walked back to his truck and looked into the magically expanded interior to see that Harry had fallen asleep and been trying to restore some of his energy by drinking a couple of bottles of lucazade. Johnathan spoke into his radio, "Natalia, the boss is out cold in the back of our truck. It seems that he won't be joining us or giving us guidance. What do we do now?"
"I say we capture a few of the enemy guards and recruit them. Then, before we go, I say we cause a few bangs as I believe that a bridge as important as this one has lot more guards nearby. Knock out the guards we can see on this side Johnathan." Natalia instructed.
"Roger that." Johnathan replied simply and bluntly. He then silently communicated Natalia's instructions to his squad, who all immediately nodded their understanding. They silently and rapidly moved away from the truck intent on capturing the soldiers that guarded the bridge.
Johnathan's squad tranquilised the guards methodically, dragged their sleeping bodies to the trucks. The guards became confused as they realised that their comrades were disappearing fast. Johnathan and his squad finished cleaning up the small area then signalled Natalia that all immediate resistance had been dealt with. Johnathan's squad then returned to their truck with only Johnathan and one of his men remaining in the immediate vicinity of the bridge to witness the unfurling of Natalia's plan.
Natalia asked one of her troops to trigger an explosion. A soldier took a sniper rifle off his back and aimed at a barrel of volatile oil on the other side of the bridge. A loud, violent explosion occured a second after the soldier sniped the barrel, killing two of the guards and wounding a third. An alarm automatically sounded, and the surviving guards radioed their commanders further up the chain of command, looking for guidance. As the surviving guards radioed their commanders, dozens more guards emerged from concealed tunnels, pathways and hatches. Johnathan looked at the increasingly growing crowd of guards gathering around the bridge. "Natalia, we need to pull back. NOW!" he quietly shouted down the radio.
"Yes, I can see that we need to pull out. Meet you back at base." Natalia replied dryly.
Both Johnathan and his squad and Natalia and her squad found getting away from the bridge a lot trickier than they imagined. Gene's army had sent a number of patrols to roam the jungle and even a number of helicopters had been pressed into the search. The two groups had been forced to take two separate routes and were only able to return to the base in the middle of the night.
The few prisoners that had been taken were moved to a building that Harry's growing army had converted to a holding area, while they were being persuaded to join the ranks. Natalia walked up to Johnathan just as he got the still unconscious Harry out of the back of the truck. "Johnathan, let's get the boss to a bed and report back to Roy. He's going to want the full details of what happened today."
"I agree. Sooner we get all of that out of the way, the sooner we can rest up." Johnathan replied eagerly. They took Harry to John and left him in his care then walked to the command center where Roy was studying a map of the peninsula.
"What's the situation you two? Think we can breeze past the bridge?" Roy asked enthusiastically as the duo walked towards him. "Was Harry okay during the mission?"
"Well, the bridge is indeed there. We're either going to have to force our way past or draw guards away from the area. There are simply too many guards to sneak past and they blocked the bridge with trucks." Natalia replied sounding exhausted.
"Harry's fine. He just passed out during the mission. I'd ask John about it as he's the doctor around here. Given the fact that Harry's a wizard though, I doubt that John will have a positive answer for us." Johnathan added, answering Roy's last question.
John, at that moment, walked into the command center. "Ah, John. We were just talking about you. I hope you can answer our questions about why Harry passed out during the mission today." Roy said to the newly arrived doctor.
"Well, you're probably asking the wrong person. We need someone from outside or we need to recruit a specialist in the enemy camp." John said bluntly.
"How about recruiting the girl that Harry encountered?" Roy asked hopefully.
"Wrong speciality and, according to Kurt, she's not been sighted since after Harry left the mountain research base. Her Psycho twin on the other hand has apparently been sighted since although Kurt lost track of her soon after that sighting." John pointed out to Roy's frustration.
"Well, what do you think then?"
"Considering that I'm no expert on the healing process of wizards, from what little I've heard or read, I'd say that his own magic has enforced his current condition. I think it's forcing him to recover from the ordeals of the last few days. I can't tell what he'll be like tomorrow."
"So we until tomorrow to see what he'll be like and whether he'll be able to participate in any actions against the enemy?" Roy asked as though he already knew the answer.
"That is correct." John confirmed.
Roy just stood looking glum while Natalia and Johnathan went to a nearby table that had beverages and snacks on it and grabbed a couple of cups of coffee and a few biscuits to start recovering their energy as they were both mentally and physically drained, especially after the journey to return to their base.
Harry meanwhile was lightly tucked underneath a blanket on one of the medical wing's beds, fast asleep and no prospect of waking up anytime soon. John had noted on a medical chart before he went to report to Roy that he would've put Harry under something thicker but the temperature was too hot for anything thicker than a blanket. Still, as far as John and everyone else was concerned, Harry was recovering and it was better that he did so rather than try to become too active too soon.
Harry slept through the night, dreaming of waking up in the prison and then of Samgon when he last saw him before dreaming of Ginny and their children.
A/N-I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and please review.A/A/N-Sorry this chapter has taken so long to be released. I'd taken some time off from writing and then I had writer's block on this and a number of other chapters of my other stories. Again, I hope you enjoyed reading and I hope you're looking forward to the next chapter or should I say chapters.