Page 104 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
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—’
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 asomethingthat 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.
