As soon as I heard “irrigate,” I reached into my parka pocket and pulled out one of my bottles of water and handed it to Sally. As far as I knew, all our real first aid equipment was still in our cars, and they were effectively out of reach. I thought for a second. “My T-shirt? It’s clean today…”

“It’ll have to do,” said Sally. She too reached out and patted Hester on the shoulder. “You’re gonna have the world’s biggest compress.”

Hester made a muffled sound, and I think she wanted to sound like she was laughing. I took off my coat and started pulling my sweater over my head.

“It starting to hurt yet? “asked Sally.

Hester shook her head gingerly. “Mumm.” She tried again, making a real effort to be distinct. “Numb.” It was swelling all right.

“Here, put your sweater back on,” George called out to me, and I heard the distinctive sound of Velcro ripping open. “This stuff is part of my kit,” he said, and tossed over a blue nylon bag with a red cross in a white square stitched on the front. “Take my muffler, too, it’s warm and can hold the compress in place.”

“All right!” Sally opened it up. There were several packets inside, each labeled for a different medical problem. “Fracture. Burns. Drowning”-Sally riffled through-”ah, Wounds and Bleeding”-then tore the pack open. There was a large compress, gauze, disinfectant ointment, and a scissors. “Shit, this is great…”

“I’ll get an ambulance coming,” I said. For all the good it would do. There was no way we cold get Hester to the paramedics until we got lots of backup. I keyed the mike on my walkie-talkie. “Comm, Three… ten-thirty-three.”

Of course it was 10-33. This had been an emergency since the first shot was fired. But I had to say something to convey the extra urgency, and there’s no code for “more urgent than before.”