Page 103 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
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 orsomeone.
‘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,somebodyhelp!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
