Page 43 of The Moonlight Healers

Helene had no idea where to even begin.

Before she could ask, Matron Durand strode toward her with a large crate. “They’ve had nothing to eat today,” she said, her face flushed underneath her white veil. She shoved the crate into Helene’s arms. “Go on now.”

Helene took a breath as she approached a soldier lying on a cot near one of the massive arched windows that ran the length of the ward. He was naked from the waist up, his abdomen wrapped in a large bandage.

“Hello,” Helene said in English with a small smile. “You are hungry?”

The soldier propped himself up on his elbow. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, please.”

Helene handed him an apple and ripped off a chunk of bread from a dense loaf. He stared down at the food with an almost childlike awe before tearing hungrily into the bread.

“Thank you,” he said, crumbs flying out of his mouth as he spoke.“Merci.”

The soldier’s dressing was covered with old blood. He needed a change, clean linens, soap and toothpaste, pain medicine.

“I will return,” she said in her halting English. She motioned to the bandage. “When I give all the food.”

The soldier smiled gratefully.

For the next hour, Helene offered what little she could. The men were appreciative, most in a state of shock as they accepted their food from her with dirty, bloodstained hands. Helene triednot to look at any of them too closely. It was strange, after what had happened in Dieppe, to be back in the role of a probate nurse. She felt as though a hundred days had passed in that one afternoon, and yet at the hospital time had stood still.

When she reached the far side of the ward, Helene’s crate of meager food was nearly empty, save for a misshapen last loaf of bread and a few apples so brown and dented they were mostly mush.

“I thought maybe I made you up.”

Helene’s hands slipped slightly on the wooden crate as she turned.

Thomas sat up on his cot, his wounded leg propped on a pillow. He seemed even younger without his full uniform, his wavy brown hair unkempt. But his gray eyes were instantly familiar as they found hers. “But here you are.”

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” she managed to say. “I thought you’d already have been…”

“Shipped off.”

Helene nodded toward Thomas’s bandaged knee. “I thought you’d be okay to leave as soon as they removed the shrapnel.”

He shrugged. “So did I. But I guess it was more complicated than they anticipated. Damn thing was lodged near an artery.” He glanced toward the crate she carried. “Is that food you have there, Helene?”

Helene set the crate down and picked out a small portion of bread and a tiny, dented red apple. “It’s not much. I’m sorry.”

Thomas smiled as he leaned forward eagerly. “I’ve only had water since yesterday. It’s more than enough.” He devoured the food in large bites, stopping only occasionally for air.

Helene looked toward the front of the ward. There was an endless amount of work to be done, and she would be scolded if she was caught talking to a soldier instead of performing her duties. “I should report back to the ward sister.”

Thomas wiped his mouth. “Now why would you do that, when we just found each other again?”

Helene’s cheeks flushed. She was almost sure she had imagined Thomas as well, or at least the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d made her feel. “You’ll want a proper nurse. I’m not much of one.”

“I don’t really believe that. You saved my life yesterday, after all. I don’t think I even said thank you.” The lightness in his voice was gone.

Since the war had broken out, so many people had been willing to look away from brutality as long as they were safe. Even her mother and grandfather, the two people she most admired, had been shockingly complacent. Whenever Helene murmured about resistance, her mother had silenced her immediately, warning it was too dangerous. But, as terrified as she’d been on the beach, she couldn’t be passive any longer in the face of so much suffering.

“What else could I have done?” she asked.

“Let him shoot me,” Thomas said. “You could have just stepped aside.”

“I couldn’t have done that.”

“Some would have.” Thomas rested back on his cot and stared at the ceiling. “I know how I can thank you,” he said abruptly. He sat up again, his mouth turning up into a grin. “Practice on me.”

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