Among the Poppies

by J'nell Ciesielski

  “William!” Feet flying, she threw herself into his arms. Into his kiss. Closer she pressed into him, desperate to savor the bittersweet moment. His hands twining in her hair, scoring her back, seizing the air from her lungs.

  “No!”

  The anguished cry pierced Gwyn’s ears louder than a cannon. Spinning out of William’s arms, Cecelia stood on the path behind them. Her entire body shook, her face white with betrayal.

  Gwyn stepped towards her. “Cecelia, please—”

  Cecelia whirled and disappeared around the corner.

  Gwyn clasped her shaking hands to her stomach. Sickness roiled inside. She spun back to the alley. William was gone.

  CHAPTER 23

  “Please, let me in.” “Go away!”

  Gwyn’s shoulders sagged as she stared at the closed flap to Cecelia’s tent. “We need to talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “You can’t shut me out forever.”

  “If you say one more word, I’ll scream.” Cecelia’s last words broke on a sob.

  Turning, Gwyn trudged away, each footstep heavier than the last until they dragged in the dirt like weights. How surprising they did not crush to dust the broken pieces of her heart trailing behind.

  Two days had passed since William left. His absence left a hole inside her she never knew could exist. Cecelia’s tears ripped it further open. Gwyn had begged and pleaded outside Cecelia’s tent for hours, drawing stares and whispers from the nurses and drivers walking by. Gwyn didn’t care. Her friend was in pain, and she had caused it. Guilt wound around her heart like a vine of thorns, choking and pricking the life from her.

  She never intended it to happen. William, a soldier dedicated to duty and a man striving for tradition, embodied everything in her life she didn’t want. He ordered her around and would never find the underside of an engine as fascinating as she did. But he hadn’t tried to shatter her dreams. He even had a few of his own.

  Her selfish dream-building had shattered her friend’s hope. Cecelia may never talk to Gwyn again, may never forgive her. But letting go of the one man who had burrowed into her heart would break it beyond repair. To choose one meant to lose the other.

  She slumped against Rosie’s bumper. Stars dotted the inky black sky, their brilliance dimmed by the haze of clouds. A cool breeze whispered by, warning of the changing weather on its way. A nice change until winter set in. Which was worse—melting into a sticky mess in summer or freezing to ice in winter?

  “Why must life always be a choice?” She raised her face to the heavens, wishing she could see the reasoning beyond. “For once, could You not make the path split? Make one straight, unquestionable way filled with sunshine and daffodils?”

  Was there a right or wrong choice? Choosing William betrayed her friendship with Cecelia, but for Gwyn to turn her back on him would be the greatest of betrayals to her heart. She touched a finger to her lips, where the memory of his kiss lingered. She could never part with him now.

  Leaning forward, she braced her elbows on her knees and dropped her weary chin into her hands. “I know You’re busy, God, and probably have more important people to talk to besides me, but if You could just end this war and let us all go home, I promise not to bother You with much else.” She paused, debating her next words, but He was supposed to know her thoughts, so there was no point in trying to hide them. “I know I said I’d try not to bother You, but if You could keep William safe, I’d be so grateful.”

  “Talking to yourself?” Eugenie materialized from the dark with a lantern swinging from one hand and two cups balanced in the other. “Not shell-shocked are you? We’ll have to send you to one of those French hospitals where they zap the men with electricity to scramble their brains back right.”

  “My mind is a bit muddled, but not that much. Lady Dowager will have a fit if she sees you with that light after curfew.”

  “She’s patrolling the burn ward tonight, so there’s no possibility of her seeing my little light.”

  “Quite defiant of you.”

  “Hardly.” Eugenie snorted and plopped down on the ground, handing one of the cups to Gwyn. Opening the lantern door, she blew out the tiny orange flame. “Them boys don’t watch where they’re flicking their cigarettes, and I’m tired of getting burned every time I walk by in the dark.”

  Gwyn wrapped her hands around the warm mug and breathed in the rich aroma of melted chocolate. A decadence in the middle of decay. “Maybe you should stop prowling around at night.”

  “And leave who to check on the cars?”

  Gwyn winced. With her mind elsewhere lately, the ambulances had slipped somewhere to the back. “I’m sorry I’ve left you with all the duties. I promise to stop being dead weight.”

  “Don’t give me that.” Ripping off her worn cap and dropping it next to her, Eugenie fluffed a hand through her dark cropped hair. “You’ve had a rough turn. It’s only fair you deserve a little time to get yourself back together. Hale still not talking to you?”

  Everyone knew. Even Lady Dowling had questioned Gwyn about the sudden coldness between her and Cecelia. Gwyn took a long swallow of the chocolate drink. “She refuses to see me. Did you swipe this from Alice again? She was madder than a wet hen the last time you took her private stash.”

  “Not so private when she keeps it in a can at the foot of her bunk.” Eugenie raised her cup and gulped. “Can’t blame her. Hale, I mean. I’d do the same if I thought my good friend had stolen my man.”

  Gwyn jolted upright, sloshing hot chocolate on her leg. “What has Cecelia been saying?”

  “Not a word, but silence lets the gossipers make their own mischief. No facts to contend with. And this is too good a rumor for them to pass up.”

  “Now there are rumors?”

  Eugenie leaned back on her elbows and stretched out her stubby legs. “You and Hale been friends a long time, she gets her eye caught on a handsome captain and pines for him while he’s gone. Meanwhile, you and he are camping together in the woods for weeks, she’s here crying for both of you, and then on your return, you’re the one found canoodling with him.”

  Gwyn groaned. “Those aren’t rumors. It actually happened.”

  “Sure, but it’s the added details that spice up the truth. You probably don’t want to know about those.” Eugenie’s thick eyebrows wiggled like wooly caterpillars.

  “Not really.”

  “Good, because I’ve seen your fingernails, and I know for a fact they’re not long enough to scratch Hale’s eyes despite what the other girls are saying.”

  Outrage shot Gwyn to her feet. The last precious drops of her chocolate flecked over the grass. “This is ridiculous. I’m going to rip Cecelia’s tent open seam by seam if I have to and make things right again between us. Somehow. I refuse to be the topic of a bunch of giggling nurses’ cruel gossip. Dragging Cecelia’s name through the mud, who do they think they are?”

  “Boxing the giggling nurses’ ears sounds like more fun.” Eugenie slurped back the rest of her drink and jumped up. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’m not lowering myself to their standards by going after them.”

  “It’ll make you feel better. Besides, they preen around here like peacocks thinking they’re so much better than us.” She harrumphed. “Wouldn’t have any patients if not for us.”

  A siren’s wail scratched the air.

  Gwyn froze. “What is that?”

  “A warning,” Eugenie said. “We only need to worry if it’s followed by two short—”

  Two short wails punctuated the warning.

  “We’re up. Let’s get ’em cranked.”

  Running around to Rosie’s front, Gwyn spun the crank until she charged with life. Adrenaline pumped through her veins.

  A driver sprinted down the rows of ambulances. “Southwest, six miles! Boys got taken by surprise trying to detonate a bridge! Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Gwyn jumped behind Rosie’s wheel, breathing a prayer of re
lief. William was east. The other engines roared and hummed. She tapped her fingers against the seat to keep her toes from launching to the pedal as she waited her turn to enter the column of motorcars. “Come on, come on.”

  Finally, the car in front of her jerked forward. They sped into the dark. The road bumped and twisted, jutting down and peaking over crater lips from cannon blasts. Gwyn’s teeth jarred as she held onto the wheel with all her might. How would they manage this drive with men bleeding out in the back?

  Mile after mile clicked by, each new bend twisting a knot in Gwyn’s stomach. Surely they should be there by now? Dark villages slept beyond the barren fields to either side of the sunken road. Did their inhabitants lay in their beds counting the number of motors rumbling by, wondering if the next attack was coming for them?

  Wind stung Gwyn’s eyes. With her goggles blown to pieces somewhere near Delville Wood, she could merely blink to keep them from drying out. A blind driver, just what the wounded needed.

  She pounded her fist against the steering wheel. “How much further?”

  Dipping around another bend, the carnage spread before them like an anthill explosion. Blackened bodies lay motionless. Supplies and bridge remnants splintered the ground. Tangy metal, churned earth, and charred remains polluted the air.

  Ten minutes later, Gwyn approached the front of the line. Slamming Rosie into park, she hopped down and raced to throw the doors open. “I can take two stretchers, three sitters in the back and one in the front,” she told the stretcher bearers. “What have we got?”

  “Shrapnel to the stomach.” They loaded the first man. “And the other is missing a leg. Then we got a crushed hand, a knock upside the head, and possibly two feet that need to come off.”

  Two more times she made the trip, each drive longer than before. With the need for haste, she didn’t have time between loads to rinse the bloodied floorboards or stretchers. Her thoughts barely lingered on the tossed-about fellows as she dodged ruts and holes with only a sliver of moonlight to guide her.

  “This is the last of them,” the field medic said on her third trip. Covered in dried blood and dirt, he pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “I bandaged them the best I could. Make sure to keep the boots on until you get to hospital, or the feet will swell and pool blood.”

  Gwyn nodded. He’d already told her that. Twice. Poor man.

  “There’s one more, there by that tree. Or what’s left of it.” The medic pointed to a leaning, leafless tree a few hundred feet away. “His mate had his legs blown off under that tree, and the private refused to leave him. The friend is long gone. The private won’t make it to morning with his head gash. Your nurses can make him comfortable in the last hours, but that’s all.”

  “We’ll take care of him.” Gwyn steeled herself for the battle to come. She’d dealt with her fair share of soldiers guarding their lost mates. It took every ounce of control she had to keep from socking them in the jaw and dragging them away for their own good.

  “Good, then I can—” Something banged on the back of Rosie’s door. The medic threw open the back door, and a corporal stumbled out spitting blood.

  Grabbing his head with both of his hands, the corporal doubled over. “Don’t put me in there! Don’t leave me in the dark!”

  “Calm down, soldier.” The medic grasped the boy’s shoulders and pushed him to the ground. “Tell me where it hurts.”

  Eugenie appeared, a roll of bandages stuffed under her arms. “Need some help?”

  “I think we got it.” Gwyn sat on top of the corporal’s squirming legs so the medic could check his chest. “There’s one up there by that tree that needs to get back, and quick.”

  “I’ll take him,” Eugenie said. “I’ll just switch my front load into yours since you got an empty seat.”

  “Thanks, Eugenie. You’re a lifesaver.”

  Eugenie tugged her lopsided cap back in place. “Don’t I know it. Sure you don’t need me here? Got plenty of experience wrestling my drunk da home from the pubs late at night.”

  “No, you take the tree case and get the rest of your load back. I won’t be long behind, as soon as we get this one settled.”

  “He’s in shock, and he bit his tongue.” The medic rocked back on his heels. “He needs quiet and rest.”

  “Just like every other man here.” Gwyn eased off the boy’s legs. “Will he be all right to ride in the back?”

  “Do you want him to have another episode riding beside you? Keep him in the back. There at least one of the other men can restrain him.”

  It took two men to pin the corporal under one of the stretcher shelves. Shivering, he curled into a ball and cried for his mother.

  Sweat trickled down Gwyn’s back as she climbed onto the driver’s bench. She rubbed a hand over her aching eyes, working the collected grit back and forth under her eyelids. The end of this horrible night couldn’t come fast enough.

  “All right there, miss?”

  The bandaged man next to her peered anxiously into her face. She smiled and patted his shoulder. “Yes, yes I’m all right. Bit of sand from the road, that’s all.”

  “I’ve had sand in my face the past two years,” he said. “Burns like the devil.”

  “That it does.”

  Up ahead, Eugenie’s grill flashed in the moon as she turned the motor around and trundled her way back down the slope to the road. A ball of fire split the darkness, obliterating the tree and everything around it. The explosion cracked like thunder.

  Eugenie.

  Gwyn slammed on the brake and stumbled from her car, ears ringing and face burning from the bonfire of car parts. Her legs pumped, sprinting forward as smoke choked the air and knifed into her lungs.

  “Eugenie!”

  CHAPTER 24

  “And so another soul is taken from us to fly to the bosom of Christ. May her passing remind us of the sacrifice required to lift the yokes of tyranny, and that each day on this earth is a blessing. She died doing what was right and what she loved with selfless devotion to those in need.”

  The priest motioned to the organ player. Off-key notes droned through the pipes to the tune of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Scratchy voices muffled by tears plodded through the chorus.

  Gwyn picked at the fraying corner of the hymnal stored in the pew in front of her, not caring when her nail tore the corner of page ten. The mourners tripped over another verse.

  “Sorrowing I shall be in spirit

  Till released from flesh and sin.”

  And what if one wasn’t ready for release from the flesh? What if it wasn’t her time, and only by the thrust of a so-called friend did she find herself in the death angel’s arms? The Bible spoke of God’s perfect will, but what good came from taking Eugenie? Nothing—not a shoe, a hairpin, or a lug nut—left from the instant incineration of the half-buried shell. Nothing left but guilt.

  “Come, my Lord, no longer tarry

  Take my ransomed soul away.”

  The stone walls, slick with mold, stood unrelenting, not allowing the smallest bit of air into the stifling chapel. Gwyn tugged at her collar, the dash of lace at the throat determined to choke her. Her lungs puffed, but only a sliver of air skittered into them. Heat flashed up her chest.

  Dressed immaculately in black, Lady Dowling stood before the group of devoted souls. Her eyes possessed a dull sheen against gray-lined cheeks. “We have lost a dear soul from our sisterhood. Surrounded by death every day, none is so tragic as when it is one of our own. So young and full of life, and always willing to lend a hand.”

  Gwyn hung her head. It wasn’t supposed to be Eugenie’s duty. She had been ready to go back to hospital. One simple request had changed everything. In front of Gwyn, nurses, drivers, and a few of the wounded Eugenie had taken that night huddled together, nodding and wiping at tears, at a grief so innocent. Little did they know a guilty intruder sat among them.

  Gwyn’s ears thundered with an erratic pulse tha
t spiraled into her head before whooshing down to her feet. The walls loomed in. The room spun. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the searing pain behind them.

  Vaulting from her seat, she ran from the chapel. Ran from the mourners inside, from the words of solace that could do nothing for her heart and from the demons of guilt snapping at her heels. Her feet carried her all the way to a small cemetery. Rows of wooden crosses peeked out of the ground, each etched with a name and rank. She fell before a cross on the last row. The earth beneath it undisturbed, unlike the soft mounds rising from the others. There was no body to put to rest for this cross.

  “I’m so sorry.” Gwyn sobbed, digging her nails into the ground. “I’m so sorry, Eugenie.”

  Convulsions threatened to tear her apart. She rocked back and forth as the waves of guilt mounted to drown her. First her mother, and now Eugenie. Taken from her, taken much too soon. Where was God’s perfect hand in that?

  “Gwyn?” Cecelia knelt beside her and placed a soft hand on her shoulder. “I’m so very sorry, Gwyn.”

  Gwyn’s throat tightened on another wretch of sobs. “Don’t say you’re sorry to me. I did this to her. I’m the reason she’s gone.”

  “This isn’t your fault. This is war.”

  “You don’t know. You didn’t see what happened.”

  “Did you drop that shell? Force her to drive over it?”

  Gwyn covered her face, hot tears spilling between her fingers. Cecelia’s arm circled around her, drawing her close. “There, there,” she crooned. “Let it all out.”

  Burrowing her face into Cecelia’s shoulders, Gwyn wept until her heart sagged empty. Cecelia stroked her back and hair, murmuring as the last of the tears dried on her lace blouse.

  “It wasn’t your fault, G.” She smoothed the tangle of hair back from Gwyn’s forehead. “It was an accident. A terrible accident that could happen to anyone. To Eugenie, to me, to you.”

  “It was supposed to be me.” Gwyn swiped the fresh tear from her cheek. “I sent her in my place because I was doing something else.”