He nodded, his brow creasing from the pain. A moment later the nurse reappeared and administered morphine.
He fell asleep quickly, his eyes on me until he could no longer keep them open and his hand went slack. With a sigh, I removed my hand from his and laid his arm beside him, put the chair back where I’d found it, and stood at the foot of his bed, watching this soldier who, while in the throes of extreme amounts of pain the day before, had seen me. Had been selfless enough to notice I was dealing with my own internal pain.
Sure, my curiosity in him was helped by the fact that he was handsome. But there was more to him than looks. Something deeper in those faded denim-blue eyes of his. A knowledge. A wisdom. And a warmth that had permeated and enveloped me on that plane, cementing in me a need to see him today. To know he was okay. Beyond that, I couldn’t pinpoint what the feelings running through me were. But I wasn’t stupid enough to get myself wrapped up in a situation that would most likely end in heartache. War, as I’d seen time and time again, was cruel. It didn’t care who it took.
“Goodbye, William,” I whispered, and then hurried out into the burgeoning morning to await my flight out.
I was up the following day at four thirty, on a plane less than an hour later, and before I knew it was landing in the same field I’d seen twice in the two days before.
Theodore and I made the rounds on the men waiting to be loaded onboard, checking the papers pinned to their shirts, pants, and blankets, depending on where they were injured. There were at least two men who most likely wouldn’t make it home, but I’d do my best to at least keep them alive so they’d have a fighting chance back at base.
Not long after we’d landed in Fulbeck I was informed we would be heading back out.
“Already?” I asked Theodore, who merely shrugged and headed back toward the plane we’d disembarked only an hour before. It was rare to have two shifts in a day, but if they needed us, we weren’t about to claim our exhaustion. Not when there were men out there fighting for the rights and freedom of others.
By the time I fell into my bed it was midnight.
“You on again tomorrow?” Hazel asked from her cot across the room.
“Oh five hundred,” I said, covering my mouth as I yawned.
“See you and the sun in a few hours then,” she said and turned over.
The pang of sadness I’d been keeping at bay all day crept in as sleep pulled me toward it. I wondered how William was doing. I’d wanted to stop by the hospital, but I’d made myself resist. He was lovely. Funny. And had a mischievous glint in his eyes, when his bullet wounds weren’t making him wince. And while many of the women I knew would’ve jumped at the chance to spend time with the charmer, I had to keep my wits about me. Being distracted while flying into war zones and trying to save lives wasn’t an option.
But as I left the waking world for the unconscious one, a vision of those pale blue eyes filled my mind and I heard his voice in my head ask, “Are you okay?”
14
“There’s a woundedman with a spectacular pair of blue eyes asking about you.”
I looked up from the bandages I was counting in the medical supply building situated next to the hospital and into the face of Edith, one of my housemates at the mansion.
We crossed paths nearly every morning, but had barely said more than two words to one another since I hadn’t had time to socialize much yet. I hoped to get to know everyone a bit better when I finally had a day off. It felt strange to only have conversed with Hazel and Luella. And barely at that. I had to remind myself that I’d had plenty of time to get to know my last squadron because we’d gone through training together. It had been quite the experience learning how to use gas masks together, swimming underwater, the surface lit on fire, and sitting through classes in geography before moving on to properly tend to a burn, a gunshot wound, or a head injury. And then there were the three days we had to make camp in the nearby woods and learn to survive should we ever be stranded. That experience alone had made Paulette, Tilly, Char, and me close as sisters.
“Did he charm you into coming to find me?” I asked, turning back to the bandages.
“I’d have done it without any charming,” she said. “He’s a looker, that one. Sweet too.”
I tried to ignore the twinge of jealousy. Had he teased her too? She was nice-looking with her golden waves and warm brown eyes. There was something comfortable about her. Friendly and open. Maybe William found her more appealing than me. Perhaps he found my looks cold and off-putting. My slender figure boyish instead of enticing.
“Kate?” Edith said and I blinked.
“Sorry,” I said and gestured at the mountain of supplies stacked nearby. “I’m a little distracted. Did he say what he needed?”
“I think he just needs you, love.” She winked and then waved as she hurried out the door, leaving it to slam after her.
I felt my cheeks warm as I stared at the closed door, chewing my lip as I considered popping in for just a minute to see how he was doing.
The door swung open again and I jumped.
“Short delay,” Theodore said.
“What for?”
“Weather.”
I looked past him at the sky. It was cloudy, as it had been the two days previously, but nothing to write home about.
