“I’m not shocked at all. I’m a doctor. I know all the meanings of the term. I have ‘lanced’ hundreds of boils, wounds, and unwanted swellings,” she said tartly, playing the game. She held up her thumb and finger an inch apart in front of Louis’s nose, then snapped them, making him jump. “I reduced them to nothing at all, and the patients were far better for it.” She’d learned that at medical school, too, how to hold her own in saucy conversations with male medical students who sought to shock and confound their female counterparts.
Louis’s brows rose and he laughed, genuine appreciation for her wit clear in his eyes, and that was better than flirtation.
“What clever repartee, Miss Atherton, though it is quite lowering to be mentioned in the context of boils. You have ‘lanced’ me to the heart,” Findlay said.
She was contrite at once. “Forgive me, Captain. Yours is quite a romantic name. Lancelot was a great hero, a brave knight who loved too well.”
“But alas, not too wisely. He chose the wife of his friend and king to love, and such love triangles always bring tragedy and sorrow.” Findlay put his uninjured hand over his breast, his fingers dark against white bandages. “Chivalry demanded that poor Lancelot worship the fair lady from afar, but he did not heed the rules of courtly love and honor, whereas I, his namesake, shall keep my distance, unless a certain lovely lady here in this humble CCS bids me approach her, to—”
“Bloody thespian. I thought your father was a bishop,” Louis said.
“So he is, but I read English at Oxford. I confess that I spent a summer or two treading the boards in repertory companies. In fact, we did Morte d’Arthur in the summer of ’14.”
“There ought to be a rule—forget sanctioning recruits for flat feet or short stature—I say no bloody thespians,” Louis said. “How did you get in, and with a captain’s commission?”
Findlay’s brows rose. “Same as you, I suspect. My father has friends in high places.” He pointed to the roof of the tent. “Not socially, of course, but perhaps having the ear of the angels is of equal use.”
“Not here in hell,” Louis grumbled. “And I found my own way to high places. My father forbade me to become a pilot. But I was just the spare to the heir then, so it didn’t matter so much. Now I’m the heir with no spare.” He frowned, shifted in the bed, his good mood clouding over. He glowered at the apparatus that held his leg up. “How long until this damned thing comes off?” he demanded again. He looked across the ward at a VAD who was delivering newspapers to the wounded officers and summoned the girl with a crook of his finger. “You there—go and tell Colonel Bellford I want to see him. Tell him my doctor wants to see him.” He sounded peevish, and spoiled, and titled.
The VAD looked at Eleanor in surprise, then her eyes hardened as she blamed Louis’s rudeness on her. “I’ll fetch Matron,” the young woman said, turning on her heel to do just that.
“Somerton—” Eleanor began, using his title. She could imagine the colonel’s annoyance, his anger, not with Louis, but with her.
“Call me Louis, for God’s sake,” he snapped. “We were playmates as children.”
The comment took her by surprise, and she gaped at him. “We were never that!”
Perhaps it was her indignation that made Captain Findlay laugh.
Then he gasped and began to choke. His eyes widened as he fought for air.
“What the devil? Take a breath, man!” Louis said.
But Eleanor rounded the bed and hurried to the captain’s side. His lips were blue, and he was struggling to breathe. She put her fingertips against his neck, where she felt his pulse hammering weakly. He gazed up at her, his green eyes wide and desperate.
She ran for the supply cart at the end of the ward, grabbed a pair of scissors and a needle and ran back again. Lancelot Findlay’s complexion was gray now from lack of oxygen. Eleanor flicked back the bedclothes. “It’s all right, Captain, I’m going to help you,” she said as she cut away the bandages, revealing the horribly battered chest beneath. She carefully searched with her fingers and found the place where a balloon of air had formed between his chest wall and his lungs, making it impossible for him to draw air.
“What are you doing?” she heard Matron Connolly cry as she arrived on the ward with the VAD. “Stop at once! This man has severe wounds, three broken ribs and—” Her voice was high-pitched with outrage and horror, but Eleanor couldn’t stop now.
“He has a pneumothorax,” Eleanor said calmly. The nurse grabbed her shoulder, but Eleanor flung her off and went back to what she was doing.
“You’re going to kill him!” the matron said.
She lunged for Eleanor again, but someone stepped past the nurse. “Step back if you would, Matron. I’ll assist if necessary,” the newcomer said calmly. Eleanor glanced up at the tall man standing beside her. “Go ahead,” he said.
“I’m going to get Colonel Bellford!” the matron spluttered and marched away.
Eleanor picked up the needle. The stranger did nothing to stop her, instead simply observing. She measured with her fingers, found the intercostal space between the ribs, and inserted the needle. Instantly, Findlay drew a hard breath.
“That’s done it. Very good,” the observer said, and put his fingers against Findlay’s neck, measuring his pulse.
“The bandages were too tight,” she said. “There was air trapped, you see, and—”
“Yes, I know what a pneumothorax is—one of his broken ribs likely lacerated the lung. Have you done one before?”
She swallowed. “In medical school.” And only on cadavers. She read amusement in his dark eyes, as if somehow he’d known that.
“I’m a surgeon. David Blair,” he supplied. For a moment his gaze roamed over her. “And you’re the lady doctor who’s caused such a tempest in our little teapot.”
“What the devil is going on here?” She heard Bellford’s voice and shut her eyes. Before she could speak, the colonel shoved her aside and bent to examine the patient.
“Couldn’t breathe. She—she saved me,” Lancelot Findlay said. He reached around the colonel for her hand and squeezed it. “Now it’s my turn to hold your hand,” he gasped. “Thank you. If I had known that’s what it would take to get your attention—”
Colonel Bellford plucked Findlay’s hand free on the pretense of measuring his pulse. “This is not a game, Miss Atherton. This is a badly wounded man, an officer and a hero. He deserves the finest care we can give him. He isn’t a practice dummy.” He ignored the nurses and orderlies who’d gathered to watch. He checked Findlay’s wounds. He frowned when he found nothing amiss and that she’d done no harm after all. “Rebandage this patient at once,” he ordered Matron Connolly.
“But not so tightly,” David Blair said, standing at the end of the bed with his arms folded over his chest, his expression bemused.
“There’s a risk of pneumonia if he can’t breathe,” Eleanor added.
Bellford glared at her. He was purple again, breathing hard from hurrying here to catch her killing someone. Eleanor looked at her hands and hid a smile of triumph, but it was short-lived.
“Young woman, I allowed you to stay despite my doubts. I ordered you to stay away from any patient but Lieutenant Chastaine, and you have blatantly disobeyed that directive. You have letters from those who clearly do not understand that proper, careful, expert medical care keeps morale high and saves lives, and there is no room for amateurs. Need I remind you that I have the power to send you right back where you came from on the next train if I choose to do so?” Behind him, Matron Connolly smirked, waiting for the commander to give the order.
“I’m glad she was here,” Captain Findlay said, his voice still rough and thin, his eyes on Eleanor. He drew another lungful of air, as if to assure himself he could. “You have my thanks for saving my life, Dr. Atherton, and for keeping my morale very high indeed.” He coughed and grima
ced. “Are you one of my father’s angels?”
“Don’t be blasphemous, Captain,” the colonel warned. Captain Blair made a sound like suppressed laughter, but turned it into a cough when his commander shot him a reproving look. “Isn’t Findlay your patient, Blair? Where were you?”
“I just got back from 32/CCS. By chance, I operated on another man with broken ribs and a lacerated liver while I was there,” he said without flinching at the colonel’s fury. “I hope he gets care as good as Findlay is receiving. You have my thanks as well, Dr. Atherton. Fine work.”
His compliment meant more than all of Louis’s insincere words. She glanced toward him now, but Louis didn’t smile or offer praise for her quick work. All the flirtation had gone from his eyes, and he was staring at her, slack-jawed with horrified surprise.
Eleanor needed a breath of air. “Please excuse me,” she said, though Colonel Bellford looked like he had more to say. She left the ward without waiting to hear it.
Outside, in the chill of the cloudy March morning, she gulped fresh air. She sank down on a bench, a makeshift thing made from two boards and a pair of short logs, and listened to the icicles dripping. She’d done what she was trained for. Another few minutes and Findlay might have suffocated, his lung collapsed, his heart too constricted to beat. It might have gone wrong, but it hadn’t. She’d saved his life. Louis wouldn’t understand that, of course, but Bellford did.
She shut her eyes, rubbed them. Do no harm. The meaning of the Hippocratic oath was a simple one, often incorrectly abbreviated to those three simple words. But harm came in so many forms—mental, physical, emotional . . . The men here had been through so much. Had she done wrong? She wondered what it was that had so dismayed Louis—was it seeing a comrade gasping for breath, turning blue, or was it the sight of her, a woman he’d once known as a clumsy, moony little girl, stabbing a needle into a man’s chest?
She straightened her spine as the door opened, sat up properly, and pulled herself together. She’d learned that at medical school, too—not to show any reaction to rebukes or criticisms that might make her appear weak or overtly feminine. She had to be stronger, braver, better than her male classmates, fully armored.
David Blair sat down beside her. The bench creaked under his added weight, and she gripped the rough boards tight, both to keep the rickety structure steady and to brace herself if he was here to deliver a lecture.
“I meant it when I said you did well. Bellford knows it, too. He’s not one for praise—or female doctors. I’m sure you’ve noticed, since you appear to be quite observant.”
She swallowed and nodded but didn’t reply. He was very tall, cord-thin. He was dark haired, his face as lean as the rest of him. He wasn’t as handsome as Louis or Findlay, but he had kind, clear, intelligent eyes. Surgeon’s eyes.
“Findlay lay on the battlefield for nearly four days with three broken ribs and a broken arm. It took a further twenty hours to get him here and to dig two bullets out of him. He survived all that, but he would have died if you hadn’t been there and known what to do.”
She scanned the tents around her, noted the icy mist that hung over them, though it was nearly spring. “My father is also a doctor. He would have reacted the same way Colonel Bellford did if he were here.”
“Yes, well, not all of us are such fossils. There were three women in my class at Cambridge, at least for a time. They were competent and quick, but they were bullied into leaving. I’m glad you stuck it out—so’s Findlay, I daresay. I’m David Blair, by the way, captain, surgeon,” he introduced himself again.
“Eleanor Atherton, doctor, civilian.”
“Not a surgeon? You have the hands for it.” He glanced down at her hands, folded on her knee.
“They opened full surgical training at the university while I was there. I took every class I could. Still . . .” She shrugged. “I do understand what Colonel Bellford means when he says how appropriate medical care and the confidence of a patient in their doctor’s skill helps heal.”
He shook his head. “Don’t you dare, not now, so soon after saving a man’s life. I’ve been here for eleven months. I’ve seen men so badly injured they thought they’d die. They lay out in No Man’s Land all alone, waiting for help or death. Once they reach us, they know there’s hope, and that they aren’t alone anymore. Hope like that doesn’t care whether you’re male or female.”
He got to his feet and glanced at the watch on his wrist. “God, I’ve been awake for nearly thirty hours. I need sleep, a bath, and food. If I take care of the first two, will you share a meal with me later?”
She let go of the bench, unclenched her fingers, and clasped them in her lap instead, resisting the urge to touch her hair, tuck back an errant strand that had fallen over her eyes. She saw him notice it as well, wondered if he’d reach out and do it for her. She rose to her feet at once, straightened her spine, met his eye with professional frankness. “Thank you, Captain, I will.”
He smiled. “Then I’ll look forward to it. It was a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Atherton.”
She watched him walk away. Now she reached up to brush her hair back. She stopped with her hand halfway to her head and stared at the blood on her sleeve. There was blood on her sleeve!
Elation replaced her anxiety.
She’d saved a life.
She went back to her quarters to change.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
David Blair had known Eleanor Atherton had a medical degree, but it was to his utter surprise that he realized she was truly a doctor.
He’d assumed she was simply husband hunting, here to snare the titled and dashing lieutenant.
She’d acted fast with Findlay, decisively, had known exactly what was needed. It took her a matter of seconds to assess the situation, a few more seconds to fetch a needle and perform the procedure. She’d managed the crisis calmly, her movements quick and precise. If that was her first time, she’d acquitted herself remarkably well. Cadavers were good for practice, but they offered no indication that the doctor had done the job right.
The moment when Captain Findlay dragged in a ragged, desperate breath, David fell in love with Eleanor Atherton, even though he knew nothing else about her. It was just as his mother had predicted. “You’ll know the right woman when you see her. Your whole life will change in an instant,” she’d told her sons. David had thought it a foolish notion then, especially for a doctor with a practical, scientific mind.
But something had bloomed in David’s breast as he watched Eleanor Atherton wielding her needle. He’d all but heard angels sing as he watched her. Was that love? It was no medical condition that he knew of. Perhaps his mother had been right after all. But when Bellford had arrived, she’d stood primly silent, her expression flat as the colonel berated her, admonished her. There was blood on her cheek, and on her blouse. Findlay was gulping sweet air, gazing at his rescuer in astonished admiration. Matron Connolly had stared at Findlay, and Eleanor, and at the colonel, stunned speechless for once. It was Connolly’s fault that the bandages were too tight in the first place, but Bellford hadn’t mentioned that. And poor bloody Chastaine had missed the point entirely, had failed to grasp the true magnificence of his visitor. He’d gaped at her, pale and horrified, clutching the bedclothes to his chin in alarm.
If she was here to bag the noble pilot for her husband, she’d failed. The lieutenant had quit the field, retired from the competition, and left the prize for a brighter, more appreciative chap. It was that thought that made David grin as he shaved before the small mirror in his tent. He cut himself with the sharp razor. Some surgeon! He was acting like a schoolboy who’d met a pretty lass on the lea and was giddy as a puppy.
It wasn’t the fact that she was pretty that attracted him. Pretty women were a dime a dozen. Several of the VADs were outright beauties. No, there was something else about Eleanor Atherton. It was her eyes, perhaps, keen, forthright, an
d without an ounce of flirtation. No one would ever accuse Eleanor Atherton of being as giddy as a puppy. He pressed a towel against the bleeding nick and winced at the sting.
He put on a clean khaki shirt, sponged his uniform, and even ran a brush over his boots and set them in place for later, ready to put on before he saw Eleanor again.
He stuck his head out of his tent and hailed a passing orderly. “Wake me in time for tea,” he said. “If I’m not needed before, of course.”
Then he climbed into bed and slept.
* * *
• • •
Hours later, dressed and as close to spit and polished as he could get without a barber or a valet, David dropped into the officers’ ward and stopped by Findlay’s bed. He was fast asleep, resting easily, his color good, his pulse normal. The fresh bandages around his chest were less snug than before.
“She should have waited for proper help,” Chastaine said, watching him. “Eleanor, I mean. She was told not to interfere.”
“Findlay would be dead if she hadn’t,” David replied. He crossed to examine Chastaine’s leg since he was there.
“When can I get out of here?” Chastaine said peevishly.
“Soon,” David said vaguely. He wondered if he could invent a reason for Chastaine to stay, just to keep Eleanor here awhile longer. “Your leg is healing well, but if we rush things, it could still go wrong. Let the bones knit properly and you’ll walk with a limp, but at least you’ll walk, and you’ll still have the privilege of buying your boots in pairs.” He turned his attention to the burn on Chastaine’s arm, red, scaly, and ugly. The image of a small bird, tattooed just above the charred skin, stared at its own singed wingtips in open-beaked alarm.
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