The Girls of Pearl Harbor

by Lane, Soraya M.

April looked up as a whistling noise shot overhead, catching her attention, followed by a boom that sent her flying across the small room, slamming her into the wall.

  Oh my God.

  Her spine contracted like it had been snapped in half, her head flying back at the same time and cracking against the wall before she slipped to the floor. April tried to stand but couldn’t, and she braced on all fours, stumbling forward. The roof had fallen in; she could see the blue sky above, and the room was filled with dust billowing around her.

  ‘Harry!’ she choked, coughing violently and clearing her throat. ‘Harry!’ she screamed this time, lurching forward. She stumbled and hit the ground before scrambling back up again.

  She spun around, disorientated as she looked for him, greeted with nothing but debris and the screams and noises of war outside.

  ‘Harry!’ she screamed again, falling on the pile of roofing and other materials on the other side of the room. She dropped down low and started to scratch, clawing with her fingers, screaming his name over and over again.

  ‘Harry!’

  Nothing. There was no sound. No muffled cry. Nothing.

  And then she heard a gasp. Or a something that sounded human.

  Her head was spinning, eyes blinking furiously as she tried to see, coughing to clear her dust-clogged throat, her lungs feeling suffocated as she gasped for air.

  ‘Harry! Harry!’

  Then she saw his dark-brown hair, and she dug more furiously, throwing pieces of roof out of the way, digging violently to free him.

  ‘Harry, speak to me! Harry, please,’ she begged, clearing the space around his face and frantically parting the rest of the debris.

  He opened his eyes, regaining consciousness, and she clawed until his entire body was exposed, her shoulders aching, fingers bleeding, head pounding.

  When he was free, she fell back down, ear to his chest, listening to his heart and his lungs filling with air. But there was something sticking out of his leg.

  ‘Harry, I need to . . . I . . .’ Her voice trailed off. She needed to what?

  He groaned and sat up, crying out as he tried to move his leg.

  She touched his leg, looking at the wood sticking out of it, sucking back big breaths.

  ‘We need to leave that there,’ she said, nodding as if to accept her own decision. ‘It’s too dangerous to take out—you could bleed out—so I’m going to give you morphine and a tetanus shot to be safe, and then, and then we’re, ah, we’re going to find a way to get you out of here.’

  Harry groaned. ‘Are you’—he hissed out a breath—‘hurt?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I’m fine.’

  She wasn’t fine—her clothes were torn, she had grazes all over her skin, and her fingernails were bloody stumps—but she could still work, and she could breathe.

  ‘Go and see,’ he grunted, ‘if there’s anyone out there who needs you.’

  April glanced at him, not wanting to leave him, but she knew he was right. She grabbed her pack but couldn’t find Harry’s, so she slung it over her shoulder and stepped out onto the sand again.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she gasped.

  There was a soldier less than a few steps away, holding his stomach, writhing in pain, and as she got closer, she could see he was trying to stop his insides from falling out.

  ‘Stay still—keep applying pressure,’ she ordered, her own hands hovering, not sure what to do. She ducked when the incessant shelling sounded out again, holding her breath for a second before leaping into action the moment there was a pause in shooting. She knew better than to move a critical patient, but there was nothing else she could do; it was the only way to save him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. Hands tight under his armpits, she hauled him backward, gritting her teeth as she fought for each step, dragging a man so heavy she could barely move him an inch. When she finally got him to what was left of the hut, she set him down, her arms burning, hands cramping up as she collapsed for a moment, catching her breath.

  ‘What’s happened to him? What does he need—’

  ‘His insides are falling out,’ she cried. ‘When he moves his hands, there’ll be blood everywhere—I won’t be able to see, I won’t . . .’

  ‘You can do this, April. I believe in you, and I can talk you through it. Come on.’

  She took a deep breath and hauled the soldier back farther, toward where Harry was lying, propped up on his side now so he could see.

  ‘Get your padding ready, anything you have left to wad inside of him, and your needle threaded.’

  She scrambled through her pack, found the last of her surgical thread, and checked it was ready to use.

  ‘Listen to me, and move fast, April. I’ll be your eyes; you just need to follow my instructions,’ Harry said, his voice raspy and telling her he was in pain, that each sentence was a struggle to get out.

  ‘Oh God!’

  The soldier’s hands fell from his stomach, and she dropped beside him, watching as the blood spurted out and he went still, his parted lips no longer moaning in pain.

  ‘Check the organs; tell me what you see.’

  ‘It’s his bowel,’ she said, using the only piece of towel she had left to slow the blood loss. ‘I can see it’s torn . . . it’s . . .’

  ‘Sew it up quickly, as best you can,’ Harry said. ‘It’ll be a mess, but it’ll give him a chance to live. The surgeons can fix him up when he gets to a hospital—just do what you can.’

  She didn’t look up, just listened to Harry’s words and let his calmness wash over her.

  ‘Stitch fast, and then you need to sew his side up. Splash some alcohol over him.’

  April’s hands were steady now, her focus absolute as she finished the bowel, splashed the alcohol, removed the toweling, and then sewed up the side of the poor man. She was only grateful he hadn’t regained consciousness.

  ‘Leave some more morphine beside him, in case he wakes up, and go check if you’re needed out there,’ Harry said.

  April checked her work and said a quick prayer for the soldier before jumping to her feet, dizzy as the room spun around her.

  ‘You’re going to make a fine doctor one day, April,’ Harry rasped.

  Panic mixed with pride as she glanced back at Harry and saw the look on his face, knew that he was speaking from the heart.

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said, and she grabbed her pack and dropped low to crawl back down the beach. ‘I promise.’

  She low-crawled her way around fallen men, some who’d already been treated and others who were already dead. There was movement in the other beach huts—she presumed the other doctors and possibly the battalion doctors had joined them—but it was screaming that caught her attention.

  Is that Grace?

  ‘Help me! Please, somebody help me!’

  April lifted her head for a second and saw her sister, on her knees and calling frantically for help. It was only now there was a short lull in shelling that she’d been able to hear her.

  She moved fast, crawling like a highly trained soldier, covering the ground quickly until she reached Grace’s side. She grabbed her hand. ‘What are you doing here? Why haven’t you left him and moved on?’

  ‘It’s Teddy,’ Grace sobbed. ‘We can’t leave him, April—I won’t leave him.’

  ‘Teddy?’ She peered down at the dirty face, at frantic wide eyes that appeared not to see anything, filled with blood and shards of something. ‘You’re sure?’ She couldn’t even tell.

  ‘You need to help me; we need to move him.’

  She did a quick assessment, seeing the bullet wound. ‘Come on—we need to get him back there,’ she said, gesturing to what was left of the beach hut. ‘Harry—I mean Dr. Evans—he’ll know what to do.’

  ‘I owe him, April. He saved my life, and now I need to save his,’ Grace cried.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I should have listened to you, I should have let you take care of me, I should have . . .’


  She had no idea what her sister was rambling about, but she did know they were going to lose Teddy if they didn’t do something fast.

  ‘Enough! Pull yourself together, would you?’ April got hold of his upper half, fingers under his armpits, willing Grace to compose herself. ‘Get his legs. We’re going to have to make a run for it, or we’ll never get him back there.’

  Grace did as she was told, and April started to count.

  ‘Three, two, one!’ she shouted, and they hauled him up, tripping and stumbling as they tried to run. Bullets whooshed past, but April breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped backward into the house and—

  ‘Grace!’ she screamed.

  Her sister’s body jerked backward, her arm flying back as she dropped Teddy and fell.

  ‘Grace!’ she screamed again. She dropped Teddy’s shoulders and jumped over him to get to her sister, then grabbed her by the other arm, hauling with all her might to drag her to safety.

  Grace moaned but started to move, her feet stumbling as she fell into the open doorway.

  ‘What happened? Who’s in worse shape?’ Harry yelled. ‘Make the call, fast!’

  April grabbed Grace and saw the hole from the bullet in her upper bicep, but it had gone straight through, which meant she wasn’t in as much danger.

  ‘Morphine,’ she muttered, quickly getting out the syringe and administering it to her sister.

  Then she left her and crouched over Teddy, ignoring his eyes for a moment to inspect his wound. ‘There’s no exit,’ she said as she examined him. ‘Bullet must be lodged there, and I can’t tell what damage it’s done.’

  ‘Douse your hand in whatever alcohol you have left, and reach in. You need to get it out.’

  She sucked back a breath and did what Harry said, plunging her fingers into his flesh as Teddy hollered, then went silent.

  ‘I can’t find it, I can’t—’

  ‘Breathe, April. Just breathe and concentrate. You’ll feel the metal soon.’

  She pushed farther, fingers deep inside him now, and then finally she felt it. ‘What if I can’t get it?’

  ‘You will,’ he said. ‘There’s no other way.’

  Her fingers closed more tightly over the slippery bullet, and she tried three times to slide it out, finally succeeding on the fourth attempt. She threw the bloody bullet to the ground and started to panic.

  ‘I can’t do the stitches—I don’t have anything left,’ she cried, after searching her sister and seeing her pack wasn’t with her. ‘I can’t let him die—I know this man—I have to save him.’

  Harry was silent for a moment before yelling out, ‘Your hair! Quickly—it’s thick; it’ll work. Pull out a strand and thread it.’

  She knew it was insane, that it might not work, that it was stupidly unhygienic, but one look at Grace’s face and she knew she had to try.

  April yanked at her hair and quickly threaded the needle, surprised how easily it worked and how steady her hands still were. Teddy was crying out again now, his hands over his eyes, but she blocked everything else out and slowly stitched, then used another strand of hair to make sure it would hold.

  ‘He’s going to live,’ she said, crawling over to her sister. She ripped at her skirt to tie around her bleeding arm. ‘Teddy’s going to live, Grace.’

  April’s body started to shake then, and she lowered herself down beside Grace and wrapped her arms around her as shock set in, as bullets continued to fire around them.

  ‘He saved me twice, April,’ Grace whispered. ‘And you saved me too.’

  ‘He saved you twice?’ she asked. ‘What else did Teddy save you from?’

  But Grace only held her tighter, curling up against her like a baby to her mother.

  ‘You need help in here?’ someone yelled out.

  April burst into tears as battalion doctors appeared.

  ‘We’re going to make it, Grace,’ April whispered. ‘We’re going to make it out of here, and Teddy is too.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EVA

  ‘I’m here, girls. You’re both here with me,’ Eva said, sitting in between Grace and April’s beds as they finally stirred.

  ‘Eva?’ April croaked.

  ‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ Eva joked, leaning over and stroking her friend’s hand. ‘I was starting to worry I’d lost you both there for a bit.’

  ‘What happened? How did we get back?’ April asked, and Eva helped her to sit up and held a glass of water for her to sip.

  ‘You were lucky,’ Eva said, holding her as she coughed and tried to sip more water. ‘We were so full that the hospital had closed to more patients, and then the ambulance arrived with you and Grace inside.’

  ‘Grace? She’s—’

  ‘Alive,’ Eva interrupted. ‘Right here, on the other side of me. I hear you did a good job stitching her up.’

  ‘And Harry? What happened to Harry?’ April gasped. ‘And Teddy, did he make it? Where’s Teddy?’

  Eva placed a hand on April’s chest and looked into her eyes. ‘Listen to me, April. Teddy is alive, but his injuries are serious. What you did for him on the beach, you saved his life, and I only know that because Dr. Evans—I mean your Harry—told me.’

  She saw the change in April, the way she relaxed into the bed the moment she heard everyone had survived.

  ‘And the other soldier—there should have been another with us—he was hurt pretty bad, and I had to—’

  ‘Sew him up yourself without a doctor helping you,’ Eva said, laughing. ‘We all know what you did, April. You’ve been out of it for almost a day, and someone has been telling everyone how incredible his favorite little nurse was.’

  April’s cheeks flushed a deep pink. ‘He told everyone?’

  ‘He did,’ she said. ‘Before they even managed to knock him out and pull that stake of wood from his leg. His other injuries ended up being minor, so he’ll be back on his feet in no time.’

  ‘Thank you for looking after us,’ April said, and Eva had to hold back her own tears as she saw them glisten in April’s. ‘If I’d lost Grace, if anything had happened to her . . .’

  ‘But it didn’t,’ Eva said firmly. ‘We’ve all lost enough, don’t you think? And I’m sure Poppy is up there looking down on us, trying her best to keep us all safe.’

  They sat for a moment, and Grace started to stir. Eva took it as her cue to leave; she had less than six hours until her shift started again, and she still wanted to check on Art before she hurried back to her tent to sleep.

  She bent and pressed a kiss to April’s forehead. ‘I’ll be back to check up on you soon.’

  ‘Eva?’ April said, her fingers catching Eva’s arm to stop her from moving.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Grace said something when I was working on Teddy—that he’d saved her twice and now she had to save him. Do you know what she was talking about?’

  Eva took a deep breath and glanced over at Grace, still asleep, her blonde hair fanned out across the pillow.

  ‘It’s not my story to tell, April. You’ll have to ask her yourself.’

  She squeezed her hand and left the Bellamy sisters to recover, relieved that she hadn’t had to say goodbye to another friend. She’d only just emerged from the dark cloud of Charlie’s death, and Poppy’s, and she didn’t ever want to be sucked back under.

  Eva hurried into the other ward to check on Art, knowing he’d be awake still, waiting for her to say goodbye before she left for the night. Sure enough, the moment she tiptoed down the row of beds, his twinkling eyes met hers.

  ‘Sorry it’s so late,’ she whispered, not wanting to wake the other men.

  Art’s hand found hers, and he pulled her closer. ‘Your friends are okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘They’re going to make it. April, Grace, and Teddy, they’re all alive.’

  She started to cry then, the exhaustion from so many hours on her feet working, fighting to save lives, and the desperation of nursing her
friends and praying they’d survive sending a huge wave of emotion through her.

  ‘Hey, don’t cry,’ Art murmured. ‘You’ve just told me everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘I can’t, I can’t lose anyone else again,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t even know how I lived through what happened before, what—’

  ‘You’re the strongest person I know, Eva. You just need a good cry.’

  The tears flowed as Art pulled her closer, his hand on her back now, drawing her in against him until she was curled to his body, her leg against his, her cheek to his chest.

  All those months she’d never given in to her pain, but in Art’s arms, she cried like a baby.

  ‘Shhh,’ he murmured, cradling her and kissing her hair. ‘You’re not going to lose anyone else; everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘It’s not,’ she whispered, raising her head and looking into his eyes. ‘Art, I’ve seen the papers. You’re to be sent home soon.’ She tucked her head back to his chest, whispering, ‘I’m about to lose you.’

  He went quiet then, his fingers still circling her back, stroking her, his mouth still against her hair, but as she slowly drifted to sleep, he never said another word.

  ‘I’ll bet your mother will be happy to have you home for Christmas,’ Eva said as she pushed Art’s wheelchair out of the hospital building and into the cool air outside. A shiver ran through her body, but she ignored it, not about to let a spot of cold weather dampen her spirits. It had been a week since her friends had arrived back, and they were both recovering well, but she needed to get away for the afternoon. Away from the stench of death in the hospital, the echoes of young men whose lives had been snatched away, and the reality that soon she was going to have to face nursing without Art to brighten up her day.

  ‘It’s going to be hard leaving here.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ The gruff tone of his voice made her slow.

  ‘You’re not looking forward to going home? To getting away from this godforsaken place?’ She laughed. ‘Where it’s possible to fry like an egg in summer and freeze to death in winter?’

  ‘Stop this damn chair!’ he swore.

  Eva froze. ‘Art? What’s wrong?’