Scarlet shut her eyes then quickly opened them again, the memories of what she’d seen, where her dream had taken her, coming back to her like a film playing through her mind.
‘I saw him. It was the day we were engaged, the day he left. Everything was the same, perfect,’ she said, then swallowed hard, finding her strength. ‘But this time he died in front of me, he’d been shot, there was blood, so much blood.’
‘Shhh,’ Ellie murmured, rocking her, then slowly lowering her back down to the bed as if she were comforting a child. ‘Everything’s fine, it was only a dream.’
‘It’s not just a dream, Ellie. James is his brother,’ she gasped. ‘James is supposed to be my brother-in-law.’
‘He’s what?’
‘You heard me,’ Scarlet choked. ‘I don’t want to speak about it. Not now, not ever.’
Ellie hesitated, then quickly began rubbing her back, soothing her. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, Scarlet. I promise. You can tell me all about it in the morning.’
Scarlet squeezed her eyes shut again, forcing the thoughts to stay away, making herself think of happy things and stop her inner torment. Ellie’s breath was steady and slow, helping to calm her as they lay pressed together on one small bed for warmth. Was it because of her feelings for James that she was dreaming like this? Was she being punished for falling for the brother of her fiancé? For being unfaithful to Thomas when she knew in her heart that she loved him so much, wanted desperately for him to come home so she could be his wife?
Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and she doubted she’d be able to find comfort in sleep again. Ellie had stopped rubbing her back, her breathing heavier now. Scarlet didn’t want to disturb her friend again by trying to get up. Instead she lay there, focused on filling her lungs deep with each inhale.
She’d kissed her fiancé’s brother. She was being punished. Not to mention the fact that she would have to live with that infidelity for the rest of her life.
Thomas. She was here because of him. She was looking for him. She wanted him by her side. James was handsome and charming and distracting, that was all. She’d been waiting for Thomas so long that James had managed to distract her from what she really wanted.
Her hand reached for her necklace, to find the comfort of the engagement ring there, but her skin was bare. She’d left it at home for safekeeping on her last visit back.
She swallowed, hard.
She should never have taken it off.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lucy
Lucy shut her eyes, knowing what was about to happen, but powerless to do anything to stop it. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Bang.
Everything else went silent for a moment, just one blank second, until she opened her eyes and heard the yells, the screams, the mayhem. She’d seen it happen, had watched as the doctor’s hand had started to shake as he cut through the skin with the scalpel, watched in horror as he hit an artery. The blood had started to spurt, the soldier on the bed in front of them sure to bleed out if they didn’t do something fast, his other leg already looking like it would need to be amputated.
The doctor had reached for his gun, held it up, the whites of his eyes flashing, before pulling the trigger and blowing half his head off.
Lucy raised her hand, wiped her cheek and found that it was sticky, saw the red stain of blood on her palm as she stared at it. Her body shook, even though she was trying her hardest to stop it. She breathed deep, eyes shut again, remembering home. The garden, walking in the breeze, sitting drinking tea with her mother on the metal chairs overlooking the roses. That was her safe place, the image she needed to draw on when the going got tough. She could do this, she would do this, because giving up wasn’t an option here, and she certainly wasn’t going to end up like that doctor.
‘Nurse!’
She heard the call, a doctor elsewhere no doubt. They all seemed to call for nurses constantly, but she didn’t move. She clamped her hand down, trying to stop the soldier’s blood flow, but it was useless. Then the pumping blood stopped.
‘He’s gone,’ a deep voice said. She turned and saw a doctor shaking his head as he leaned past her to check the patient. ‘He’s gone. Go and help the incoming.’
Lucy wiped her hands on her apron and propelled herself forwards, pushing the horror scene she’d just left from her mind as orderlies rushed past her, presumably to clean up the bodies and the blood. There was no time to care, to feel sick, to do anything other than keep going. They were a doctor down now, and as she stepped over his body, past the pool of red blood on the floor that two orderlies were scrambling to deal with, she forced down the bile burning its way up her throat and ran. She was made of tougher stuff. She’d heard her father tell her brother to keep his chin up when they’d been kids, as if he was the tougher one, the one who needed to be strong, but it was advice she was going to take now.
Outside, the air was thick and smoky, like she was in a thick, dense pea-soup fog tinged with the smell of gunpowder. Or maybe it was her imagination. After almost forty-eight hours on her feet with no sleep, she was feeling delirious, as if she were watching herself from above rather than being in control of anything.
The ambulances hadn’t stopped. They kept arriving, over and over again. It was a constant circus of tending to the injured, doing what they could for some, preparing others for evacuation.
She swallowed hard, the bile rising again. And then there were the ones they patched up as best they could for evacuation, only to have them back within the hour, injured again or sometimes dead because they’d been shot again before they made it to the boats.
Lucy had no idea how they were going to survive, how she was going to pull through. But the determination she felt inside, the hatred for this war and the sadness she felt for all the men suffering, made her refuse to give in. She would hold her head high and do everything she could, for every soldier she could. This was what she was made to do, this was what she’d wanted for so long, to save lives and make a difference.
‘Incoming!’
She took shelter, watched as another ambulance was shot at as it tried to make its way to the safety of their hospital. They needed protection, some sort of cover to keep their nurses safe and the ambulance drivers out of harm’s way as they drove in. But she knew any sense of safety she felt under cover was silly anyway; being under canvas was no different from being out in the open.
But most of all they needed rest. They couldn’t keep going like this – without sleep, without food. If more doctors started to make mistakes, had hands so shaky they couldn’t hold a scalpel, then they wouldn’t be any use to anyone.