It seemed like moments ago he was fighting an ambush on Route Coloniale 3, a stretch of dirt and sometimes pavement that neatly bisected the emerald hills of the surrounding countryside. He thought he caught a whiff of the gunsmoke, dust and diesel of the place, but that was a fading impression; sunshine, clean sheets and the incongruous antiseptic smell of the hospital filled his nostrils. Wherever he was, he was far from an army surgical hospital.

There was a residual pain in his chest where he'd taken a slug from a Soviet burp gun, a shot one of the Viet Minh got in as he was putting a grenade a machinegun nest, trying to take the heat of the ambush off the men being suppressed below. The world had exploded into pain as the grenade went off down below. Instead of the rough, calloused hands of fellow Legionnaires, muttering assurances in accented French, most of them were fluent but not perfect, as he was strapped to a gurney and carried out; the Legion never left their own behind. Now there was a nurse, looming over him. 

He could feel the bandages over his chest, and a foreign presence on his arm; looking over, he saw the IV tube and the drip bag. 

He tried to speak, but the parched throat made it come out as an indecipherable croak.