“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. This time tomorrow, we’ll be betrothed. A wounded man is hard to resist.”
“I’m sorry to tell you, but I’ve resisted more than a few wounded men in my time.”
“Your loss.”
“The thing is,” I said, working hard to ignore his determined gaze and dazzling smile. “I’d be tempted...if I hadn’t already promised myself to a lovely man with a head injury just yesterday.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm. He probably doesn’t remember asking. But a promise is a promise.”
He was handsome, even with dirt covering half his face, a split lip, and a bloodstained T-shirt. But it was his laugh that really drew me in. A deep, husky sound that had an intimate quality to it, laced with a bit of naughtiness.
“Oh,” he said suddenly, the laughter gone as quickly as it had started, his good arm clutching his stomach.
“Let me see,” I said, and lifted the blanket and looked at the bandage covering the left side of his abdomen.
“Shit,” I said, frowning when I saw blood seeping through the white gauze. “I’m going to need to undress this.”
“You work quick. Already undressing me?” he said. But the teasing tone in his voice was fading and I realized now he didn’t have a drawl at all, he was losing blood and woozy.
“Theodore?” I called, gesturing for him to join me. “I need stitching, a needle, and fresh bandages. More morphine too.”
I lifted the blanket for him to see.
“Hey,” the sergeant said. “This ain’t a free show. He has to pay.”
One of the young Germans muttered something and I ignored it as I looked to Theodore who nodded and strode up the aisle to get what I’d asked for.
“William,” I said, using the soldier’s first name now in an attempt to sound familiar. Comforting. But his eyes were starting to flutter. “Your stitches tore and I’m going to need to put in some new ones, okay?”
“You’re nice,” he murmured, reaching up with a bloodstained hand to touch a lock of my hair that had come loose from its bun.
“You think that now, but it’s probably going to hurt. We’re going to get you more morphine though, okay?”
He nodded and his eyes closed, his head slumping to the side.
“Shit,” I whispered just as Theodore arrived with the items I’d asked for.
I pulled back the blanket and carefully removed the bandages that were soaked with blood and had begun dripping down William’s torso and the side of the litter to the floor and my boots.
“I’ll clean that up,” Theodore said.
“Later,” I said. “I’m going to need you to help hold the wound closed while I sew.” I pulled a bottle of morphine from my pocket and handed it to him. “Be ready if he wakes.”
“Er word stern,”one of the Germans said and I sucked in a breath. William was not going to die. Not on my plane.
I got to work sewing, my fingers slipping on the needle as blood continued to spill from the wound, Theodore trying to hold the torn skin together where a bullet had ripped into the soldier and then had been hastily removed by the field doc before being sewn closed.
“Sorry,” Theodore whispered as his hand slipped again. But I was almost there. Just a few more stitches and I could tie it off.
There was a grunt followed by a sudden scream and William lurched upward, smacking my hand away as he hit his head on the litter above him.
“Hold him down!” I shouted as one of the Germans began laughing and taunting us.
“Ich sagte der dummen Schlampe dass er sterben würde!”he yelled.
I exhaled, steadying my hands as William writhed in agony. And then it was done. I tied off the string, covered the wound with a fresh bandage, and grabbed the morphine from Theodore’s pocket, hurriedly administering it and counting silently in my head until the thrashing began to abate.
