Page 27 of The Moonlight Healers

“Of course, we are grateful,” she continued. She glanced down, as though she couldn’t look at them as she finished hersentence. “We are grateful for a swift end to the fighting.” She pursed her lips and looked up again. “And for the continued security of our Vichy government.”

“Grateful,” Elisabeth muttered beside Helene, her jaw clenched. Her voice was so low Helene wasn’t sure she meant to say it out loud.

Cecelia took a step forward and raised a hand as a few of the girls turned to speak to each other or cry out. “Silence now, girls.”

Helene tried to read her cousin, to search for some sign of the fear that reverberated across the rest of them. But Cecelia didn’t betray any emotion.

“They have asked for nurses to come to the field,” she said. “We will ask some of you to stay here, to help the sisters and nurses prepare for the arrivals of the wounded. The ambulances will begin arriving any moment with the first of them.” Her gaze flickered to Helene’s. “The rest will go to Dieppe, to help treat the casualties on the beach and assist in whatever way you can.”

“Blanchet, Allard, Moreau, Chastain, Vernier, Bassett, Adrien.” Several of the girls looked up at the sound of their names. “Report to your assigned wards. Your matrons will direct you.” With a soft, scurrying of feet and a rustle of their gray uniforms they left the dormitory together.

“Corbin and Laurent. Shower and dress and report to your wards.”

Anne and Elisabeth stepped forward. Elisabeth caught Helene’s eye, questioning.

“The rest of you,” Cecelia said, surveying the small group that remained, most of them the more experienced nursing students, girls like Denise, who had been there at least a year, “report to me near the west entrance of the Hôtel-Dieu in fifteen minutes. Bring your aprons and caps.”

Helene didn’t move at first, unsure she had heard correctly.

“That includes you, Paré. Dress quickly and come down with the rest,” Cecelia said.

Helene opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She had only been there two months. As a nurse, she had been tasked with nothing more complex than bed changes and baths. What could she possibly do on a battlefield?

“Why?” she finally managed to ask.

Cecelia’s expression didn’t waver.

“Come now. Do as you’ve been told.”

Helene’s body flooded with fear, to be in a position where she would have to face death and suffering on such a staggering scale, to have no idea if she would even be able to help. But she knew at the look in Cecelia’s eyes she had no choice. And so with a shaking hand, she picked up her clean uniform from the end of her bed and followed orders.

* * *

The truck jostled its way down the long road that led into Dieppe. The space underneath the canvas cover was shaded and silent, clouds of dirt kicked up by the oversize wheels occasionally floating through the wide opening in the canvas flaps in the back. As they churned through the countryside that separated Rouen from the coast, the flaps revealed farms and small villages, churches and schools, little shards of normalcy scattered along the route clashing with the sounds of aircraft overhead, the procession of armored cars, military vehicles, and ambulances that screamed past in the opposite direction.

Everything inside the truck had a dreamlike quality, the girls around her, vague and interchangeable, hands fidgeting relentlessly in their laps; the sisters seated across from them, almost comical in their oversize white habits and veils, their heads bowed as their lips moved in prayer.

The only person who appeared to her with any clarity was Cecelia. She didn’t bow her head or pray like the other sisters.She simply looked forward, her blue eyes almost glowing in the darkness.

After they’d been on the road for at least an hour, the truck stopped with a lurch. The driver idled for several moments before making a sharp turn to the left, the engine groaning as it picked up speed once more. Out the back of the truck Helene saw that the countryside had given way to the outskirts of a larger town, wide fields replaced by narrow streets and larger buildings, shops with darkened windows, shuttered homes and apartments. Helene knew their destination couldn’t be much farther.

“Do you smell that?” came a voice from her left, Adeline, one of the nursing students from a town on the coast not far from Honfleur.

“Do I…?” Helene started, but before she could finish, she knew what Adeline meant. It hit her like a wave. It was home, the scent her father once carried back from the docks, woven into the fabric of his jacket as he twirled Helene in great circles, her face buried into his neck. It was the rain outside her bedroom window at night, her first breath in the morning, the way the scent changed, softened or deepened with the winds and tide. It was the throughline, the horizon, the light that filtered through every one of her memories.

The salt air rose, taken in by warm gusts of air. Outside, the streets grew crowded with other trucks and ambulances. They passed tanks with enormous guns stacked to their roofs, an armada of vehicles, what seemed like thousands of men, Germans in uniforms with guns, Allied prisoners sitting on street corners with dirty faces or bloody bandages watched by more Germans with guns, an entire village full of men adrift.

As they inched through Dieppe’s city center, a group of Allied soldiers marched slowly past the back of the truck. A few were limping, their shoulders slumped, bandages soaked with blood tied around arms and legs.

There was a loud exclamation, and a German soldier cameinto view, his large, black gun shoved so hard into one man’s back that he fell to the ground. Beside Helene the other girls let out moans and clutched each other. Across from her the sisters prayed, their hands folded.

Helene watched numbly as the German towered above the other soldier, screaming, until the truck picked up speed and they faded into the background, the boy curled into a ball with his hands over his head.

“Was that an American?” Helene whispered to Adeline as they turned down a narrow side street away from the congested plaza. Her throat was dry and irritated from the dust.

“Canadian,” Cecelia said before Adeline could answer. Helene was surprised to have been heard over the commotion outside. “Most of them are.” It was the first time Cecelia had spoken since they left the Hôtel-Dieu.

“It’s nearly time now,” Cecelia said to the group as the truck rumbled to a stop. Over the noise of the other trucks and aircraft, Helene could just barely make out the soft crash of waves in the distance. “Stay close to me. Do as they tell you. We are here to serve, but we must also be safe. Remember your training.”

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