The Girls of Pearl Harbor

by Lane, Soraya M.

  ‘Do you have any other nurses yet?’ she asked.

  April shook her head. ‘Not that I know of.’

  Grace took a big shuddering breath. ‘I’ll go too, then.’

  April looked like she was about to burst into tears. ‘You will?’

  ‘I’m not letting you go alone, so yes, I’ll go. What about Eva?’

  Grace didn’t think Eva was up to it—she’d barely recovered from what they’d been through in Pearl Harbor—but she didn’t want to presume.

  ‘Let’s go ask her,’ April said. ‘She’s been more like her old self lately, don’t you think?’

  ‘What I think is that Arthur’s finally realized how lucky he is to have a nurse as pretty and smart as Eva fussing over him all day.’

  They both laughed, and Grace clasped April’s hand when she held it out, pulling her to her feet.

  ‘I feel like I hardly see you anymore,’ Grace said, dropping her head to April’s shoulder as they walked, leaning into her. ‘We seem to either be working or sleeping and nothing else.’

  ‘It’s only going to get worse too. Harry, I mean Dr. Evans, thinks we could end up treating hundreds if not a thousand patients between this week and next.’

  ‘Harry, huh?’ Grace teased. ‘You two are on a first-name basis now?’

  April just grinned in reply, and they stopped beside Arthur’s bed. Grace was surprised to see him sitting upright, his cheeks freshly razored and his eyes bright, with one hand touching Eva’s. Eva had fallen asleep, her head tilted to the side where she sat on the stool beside Arthur’s bed, and his fingers had inched close to hers, the tips just touching.

  ‘Can’t you let her sleep a little longer?’ he asked, his voice low.

  Grace saw the tender way he glanced down at Eva and wondered how on earth such a sullen, uninterested-in-life man could suddenly seem so human. Eva had obviously worked her magic on him.

  She swapped glances with April and hoped her sister was thinking the same thing she was.

  ‘It’s fine. We’ve both finished our shift, and we were coming to collect her,’ Grace said.

  ‘You look after her, Arthur,’ April told him before she turned. ‘She’s looked after you from the second we found you, and she needs someone to take care of her.’

  He gave them a little salute. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Grace linked arms with her sister as they walked away. ‘You’re not going to ask her to join us, are you?’

  ‘No,’ April whispered. ‘Not now. Not when she’s finally getting back on her feet again. I don’t think it would be fair.’

  ‘Nurse!’

  They both jumped back as more men were brought in, a wave of patients being run through the doors on stretchers. So much for getting something to eat and finally going to sleep.

  ‘Oh my God, these men . . .’ Grace’s voice trailed off as she leaped into action, still feeling the urge to run and hide whenever she was faced with blood and gore, the smell alone making her stomach heave. But these soldiers needed her, and that was all that mattered.

  ‘How long have they been like this?’ Grace asked.

  The two men closest to her were both wrapped in dirty blankets, their faces and bodies caked in mud and sweat and dried blood. Their faces were thickly stubbled with at least a few days’ worth of hair, and she could barely see what she needed to work on first.

  Her sister took one soldier, and she turned to the other, checking his eyes first and his breathing before taking his hands to move them, wondering why they were so tightly clamped over his stomach.

  ‘If you could just move—’ she started, before screaming. ‘Help!’ Blood spurted from him, his hands soaked red. She could make out loose stitches that were no longer holding, and she clamped her hands over the gaping hole in his abdomen, trying not to cry as she talked to him.

  ‘Stay with me,’ she choked out. ‘You’re going to be fine; we’re going to look after you now.’

  ‘Doctor!’ April screamed beside her. ‘We need a doctor here!’

  Grace was trembling, unable to look at her hands, to see what she was holding, to put a name to the slippery part of the man she was connected to, trying to stop him from bleeding to death in front of her.

  ‘We’re going to be fine here.’ Dr. Evans appeared beside her, his voice deep and commanding. ‘Keep your hands there, and walk with us,’ he said. ‘We’re going to save this man’s life—you hear me?’

  Grace nodded, ignoring the lurch of her stomach as she hurried with them, her hands the only thing stopping the poor man’s insides from slipping straight out and onto the floor.

  Eva’s eyes met hers from across Arthur’s bed as they raced past into the operating theater, where Dr. Evans’s calm voice guided her when to let go, his practiced hands reaching straight in, frantically starting to sew as more blood pumped out, as another surgeon dashed in to help him and more patients were rushed past in conditions easily as bad.

  Grace walked on wobbly legs until she was away from the noise, out of sight, and leaned her back against the wall as she slowly slid down until her bottom hit the floor. She stared at her red hands, at the blood dripping down her arms, opening her mouth and letting out a silent scream that was anything but silent in her head.

  Get up.

  The voice in her head was insistent, but she refused to listen to it.

  ‘Grace?’

  She took a deep breath and raised her eyes, finding Eva kneeling beside her. She hadn’t even known anyone was near her.

  ‘Grace, we need you. Get up.’

  Grace pushed herself up the same way she’d gone down, her back against the wall, knees shuddering as they tried to collapse on her.

  Eva’s warm palms were against her cheeks, and Grace slowly focused on her friend’s eyes.

  ‘You’re going to be fine, Grace,’ Eva whispered. ‘Come on—there’s more men coming through those doors than we can handle. They’re talking about closing the hospital if we don’t start moving through them faster.’

  ‘I’m going to the front,’ she whispered. ‘Me and April, both of us. They need nurses there.’

  ‘You can’t, Grace. You can’t deal with all the blood here, let alone—’

  ‘I’m going,’ she said, surprised by the strength in her own voice. ‘I have to.’

  Eva took her hand, not seeming to care that it was bloodstained.

  ‘Well, if you’re going, I’m going too.’

  Grace wanted to tell her no, that they weren’t letting her now that she was finally starting to find her way again, but Eva’s voice was full of authority, and her friend was the same Eva who’d so impressed Grace all those months ago in Hawaii.

  ‘Fine, but be careful. I can’t lose another friend,’ Grace muttered as they reentered the emergency ward.

  ‘Right back at you, Gracie,’ Eva said. ‘We’re all coming back from the front alive, no matter what.’

  ‘We need morphine and more morphine over here!’ someone yelled.

  ‘Bleeding out! Get him to surgery!’

  ‘I need a doctor, now!’

  Shouts erupted throughout the ward as it turned to mayhem, with men everywhere they could fit them and nurses who’d already worked twelve hours straight standing alongside surgeons who were on call twenty-four hours a day. If she could survive being in this ward, then she could survive anything. Or at least that’s what she was going to keep telling herself.

  A few days later, Grace gave Eva a quick kiss and a long hug goodbye, not sure whether to be relieved or sad that she wasn’t coming with them. They’d been overrun with patients, the beds full and their surgeons working around the clock to save the lives of so many young men, and Eva had been grounded.

  She hurried after April and Dr. Evans, her pack thumping against her shoulders, helmet clutched to her chest with one hand. She saw the doctor pause after helping April up into the army truck, and she gratefully took his hand and climbed up after her. There were only grim faces to greet her when she
stepped into the canvas-roofed deck, taking her position beside her sister.

  ‘It’s just us?’ she asked. ‘No other nurses to help these doctors?’

  April shook her head and shuffled over for Dr. Evans to sit beside her. ‘They couldn’t spare any more, but nurses have landed with soldiers directly onto the beach today.’

  ‘Did anyone see if the mail came today?’ she asked. ‘I meant to go back and check.’

  April nodded. ‘It came, but there was nothing for you. I’m sorry.’

  Grace nodded and rubbed her hands together, still not used to the change in weather. It had been so wet her boot had disappeared into a mud puddle and her foot had come up without it on her way to the hospital this morning, and she hated to think how cold they’d get if they were forced to sleep out in the open. They’d all been told to start wrapping in newspaper now beneath their blankets, to stop the cold bite of nighttime from freezing them half to death. All she’d wanted was a letter from Teddy to keep her going, something to tell her that he was all right, but she hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d left that night, posted to God only knew where. And she’d been too mortified to write to him first, unsure what to say after what had happened.

  She held hands with April as the truck rumbled on and as children ran after them when they passed through town, calling out for chocolate and cigarettes, their little hands extended on skinny arms. She would usually have moved farther toward the back of the truck, calling back to them, but today felt solemn. Grace wondered how she, the nurse who was scared of blood, who’d made Eva laugh when they’d first met over her confession, had ended up volunteering to go to the front. She shuddered just thinking about what they might encounter.

  She glanced at April, at the strong side profile and tight pull of her mouth, clearly deep in thought. All these years and months she’d slowly started to resent her sister; she’d resented her for telling her to stay at home and not become a nurse, for always being the mother, for making it clear she was the older sister, for telling her not to go on that date that night; and she still hadn’t told her she was sorry. That she should have listened to her. That she wanted more than anything for her sister to take over and look after her again. But she couldn’t, because April needed to live her own life without having to mother a sister who was barely eighteen months younger than she was. It was her turn to support her sister and show her that she could be there for her too.

  ‘What is that?’ April whispered beside her after they’d been bumping along the road for some time.

  ‘The sound of war,’ Dr. Evans muttered. ‘We’re getting close, ladies.’

  Grace stared at April, holding her hand tighter as the sound of bullets being fired became louder, as the feeling in the air changed and everyone went deathly still in the truck.

  ‘It’s going to be hell out there, isn’t it?’ Grace whispered.

  April had tears in her eyes, and Grace reached forward to brush her sister’s cheeks as they started to slide down her face.

  ‘We’re going to get through this,’ April whispered back. ‘We’re going to save lives, and we’re going to be fine.’

  Grace nodded as the truck lurched to a stop and someone yelled at them to get out. She went down right after Dr. Evans, relinquishing April’s hand, and soldiers were waiting for them, holding guns. She stared at them, the enormity of what they were doing hitting hard as she eyed their rifles.

  A bomb seemed to erupt around them, and Grace instinctively doubled over.

  ‘Stay low!’ a soldier yelled. ‘It’s crawling only on the beach, and get to a beach hut if you can. We need to save as many men as we can here before they’re moved!’

  The soldiers took the lead, and Grace, her sister, and four doctors followed, with more soldiers bringing up the rear. She ran low, holding her hat with one hand, her pack containing all the supplies she needed.

  Ping!

  She dropped to the ground as a shell whizzed past her helmet, her body shaking. Soon, earth gave way to sand, and Grace crawled beside her sister, trying to remember to breathe as she saw men on the ground up ahead, her helmet constantly sliding down. Shells were firing from every direction, her head pounding as loud as her heart as she frantically followed the soldiers and doctors.

  ‘Nurse!’

  April was beside Dr. Evans, so Grace stopped, hauling her pack off. She kept her head low as she took out morphine, fingers fumbling at the sight of the young man lying beside them, his body convulsing, covered in sand that made it almost impossible to know what was even wrong with him.

  And then she saw a doctor bent low, his face covered in splatters of blood as he looked up, glasses foggy.

  ‘We need to tourniquet it before he bleeds out!’

  Grace’s stomach heaved at the sight of the man’s leg, in tatters below the knee, his foot gone completely. She scrambled to help the doctor, both fighting to tie it off tightly enough, forgetting the shells firing over their heads.

  ‘Stop!’ she screamed at the sky. ‘Just stop!’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  She looked down at the soldier writhing in agony, seeing the terror in his eyes.

  ‘Leave him; come on!’

  ‘Someone will come for you soon,’ she cried, crawling away as he reached for her, breaking her heart as she left him.

  The next man was just yards away, cradling his head, and she bent over and vomited almost instantly as she saw his eye socket, part of his face completely blown away. She reached for more morphine, wondering how it was ever going to be enough.

  Grace had no idea of the time, no concept of minutes or hours, as they systematically crawled across the beach, finally making their way to one of the beach houses. She lay low, on her stomach, head to the side as she frantically tried to breathe. The beach smelled like death; the metallic taste of blood lingered in the back of her throat, her hands stained with it, the bodies strewed everywhere telling her their work would never be done.

  She covered her head with her hands as more shells whizzed past, her heart still pounding. Then she saw a soldier, his hand moving, like a person in the ocean trying to get the attention of someone on land. Only he was on the sand, not in the water. He rolled over and then fell.

  ‘We need to get to that soldier,’ she said, blinking the dust from her eyes as she strained to see him.

  ‘He’s too far; we won’t make it,’ the doctor said, his glasses at an angle now. Another doctor crawled in, looking as exhausted as she felt.

  Grace looked again, saw the man writhing, and made the decision to save him. She had enough morphine still, and she was going to make sure he at least got that.

  She checked her pack and started to crawl, so low her face was covered in sand, praying the entire time she wasn’t about to get hit herself.

  ‘I’m coming!’ she yelled, not sure if her voice could even be heard.

  She crawled past a dead soldier, refusing to look at him, and after what felt like forever, she was finally there.

  ‘I can’t sit up; we need to stay low,’ she said, rolling over to get her pack off. She kept her head tucked down as she reached inside it. She jabbed him with morphine and hauled at his shoulder to roll him over. ‘What’s happened to—’

  Grace’s voice died in her throat. Her heart seemed to stop for a second, the sound of the ocean roaring in her ears.

  ‘Teddy?’

  He cried out, not seeming to know who she was or what had happened.

  ‘Can you see?’ she gasped. ‘What’s happened to your eyes?’

  He was pawing at them, frantically rubbing them now. ‘I can’t see anything!’ he hollered. ‘Why can’t I see?’

  Grace grabbed his hands and looked at him, could see shards of something in his eyes among all the blood. Then she moved to her hands and knees and shuffled down farther, inspecting the rest of his body. Dammit. His arm was bleeding badly, and there was a wound to his side that she was certain was a bullet entrance.

  ‘Help!’
she yelled, frantically looking for any of the doctors or a soldier or someone.

  ‘Leave him! We need you over here!’ someone called back from the hut.

  ‘I can’t see,’ Teddy cried. ‘Why can’t I see?’

  Grace wrapped her arms around him and held tight, cradling him, looking after him just like he’d looked after her the night he’d saved her.

  ‘I’m not leaving you,’ she whispered. ‘I’m never, ever leaving you.’

  She’d tried so hard to stop loving him, to not fall for him, to stop thinking about him—to honor her best friend’s memory by never thinking about Teddy that way again. But the man she loved might die on a beach in the middle of nowhere, and she wasn’t leaving his side, not even for a second.

  She’d loved Poppy with all her heart, but she loved Teddy too.

  ‘I’m here. You’re going to be okay.’

  Teddy’s screams turned to tears, sobs that shook his entire body, and she doubled over him, holding him through every inch of his pain.

  ‘Help!’ she screamed. ‘Please, somebody help!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  APRIL

  ‘Here, use this on your eyes.’

  April took the canteen from Harry and dropped a small amount of water onto her face, wiping with her fingertips. Every inch of skin on her body was gritty—even her mouth was filled with sand—and she took a grateful gulp of water before passing it back to him.

  She looked out, still trying to catch her breath, finding it hard to believe what she’d just witnessed. Men in pieces, men shooting, men dying. Men dead. She hadn’t seen Grace since a few minutes after they’d started down the beach, but she was trying not to think about her. Grace was smart, and she’d grown so much since Pearl Harbor; she was a grown woman in her own right, and she didn’t need an overbearing sister watching over her any longer. She’d made that clear, and April knew in her heart it was right.

  ‘They’re going to try to bring men to us, but—’