“If you set yourself on fire, I’ll be court-martialed and sent home, and I like my job here. Most of the time, when I’m flying.”
“Thank you for the cigarette. I figured you’d forget about me.” It would have been hard to do, he had a definite personality, and she could see he had a sense of humor, despite his injuries. They had been through hell on the beach, but he seemed in surprisingly good spirits, and grateful to be alive. “What do you do in real life, Alex, when you’re not here?” He wanted to know her, and he wanted someone to know him, and remember him, as though to prove he was still alive, which he very much seemed to be, in spite of what he’d been through.
“I go to parties and fight with my mother,” she said with a grin. “Actually, I’m a nurse in ‘real life’ too, which is how I wound up here. I was stationed in San Francisco with the army for a while, and then volunteered to come here for the air evac transport unit, which is kind of a flying ambulance that brings men back from the front lines.”
“That’s dangerous,” he said, visibly impressed.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “I’ve been lucky.”
“Me too. Especially tonight, when I met you.” He had finished the cigarette, and she took it from him, stubbed it out on the sole of her shoe, and slipped the butt in her apron pocket. Then she carefully maneuvered the gurney again to take him back to his original location. “Thanks for the smoke,” he said, smiling happily.
“Now you should try and get some rest. I’ll check on you again before I leave,” she promised as she put him back where he started and set the brake so he didn’t roll away.
“When is that?”
“I’m off at midnight, and no, you can’t go to the pub for a drink and a smoke,” she said sternly, and he laughed. She didn’t know why, but she liked him. He was something of a rough diamond, but he seemed like a nice guy.
“Don’t work too hard,” he said as she waved and hurried off. She had some critically ill patients to check on before her shift was over.
She wandered by to check on him before she left, and he was lying flat on his back and snoring. She smiled and signed out at the nurses’ desk. He had been the bright spot in the night. One of her patients had died of his injuries, and most of them were suffering from their wounds. She suspected that he’d be shipped back to the States soon, but at least the war would be over for him, and he could go home. For some, they would be there for months, and had numerous surgeries to look forward to, and a severely altered life, or permanent disfigurement. Petty Officer Stanley was right, she decided. He’d been lucky.
She walked the short distance to her barracks. It was a beautiful June night, and she could easily have been fooled into believing that all was well with the world. But her patients, and the nurses who cared for them, knew better, which made it hard to believe that the world would ever be whole again.
Chapter 12
Just to keep his spirits up, Alex stopped by to check on Petty Officer Stanley the next day on the way in for her night shift, after she flew her regular missions with her crew during the day. They had all been working double and triple time since the invasion of Normandy, but slowly the less seriously injured men were leaving to go back to their ships, and the critically injured to be sent home once they were well enough to move. There were navy officers in and out of the hospital constantly to check on the status of their men and categorize them with their own triage system, some of which shocked the nurses and doctors. Some of the men the navy was returning to serve were in no condition to face combat again, but they sent them anyway. They needed them too badly to send them all home.
When Alex checked on Petty Officer Stanley, she found that he’d been moved to a ward. She went to see him and found him in a proper bed. He had showered and shaved, with assistance, since he couldn’t get his cast wet.
“You’ve changed address,” she said when she saw him, greeted him with a smile, and slipped him a cigarette. He smiled broadly when she did.
“Thanks for that.” He tucked it into the pocket of the pajama top provided by the hospital.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked him, and he smiled.
“Better now that I’ve seen you. I had bad news this morning. Whenever I’m back on my feet, they’re sending me back to the front, wherever it is at the time.” Alex was surprised.
“They’re not sending you home with third degree burns and a broken leg?” She was shocked.