Page 28 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
But as she hurried to the hospital, all set up and waiting for patients that had never come until now, she knew they weren’t ready. There was no possible way they could be ready for what was to come. Smoke filled her nostrils then, the dry, suffocating smell of something burning.
Charlie.She shook her head as if it would stop the thoughts, as if she could somehow just shut her brain down.Charlie, where are you?Surely she’d know if he was dead? Wouldn’t she be able to feel it in her bones? Wouldn’t she sense that he was gone?
‘Nurse!’
She spun around and saw a man being carried by a sailor. Or at least she guessed it was a man. His hair was gone, replaced with raw, oozing red flesh. His eyes were glued to her as if he was stuck in his body and was begging her with his gaze. The clothes covering what was left of him were wet and torn, and one of his legs appeared to be hanging.
‘Get him to the closest bed,’ she said, forcing her words out. ‘And keep them coming.’
She traded glances with the sailor, saw the pain on his face as tears slipped silently down his cheeks. She bet the young man had never, ever cried like that before, but maybe he didn’t even know he was doing it because he was in such a state of shock.
‘Great work saving him,’ she said, leaning close and patting his shoulder. ‘Now go and save some more.’
‘They’re all like this,’ he whispered, his eyes wide as he stared back at her. ‘Every single one of them.’
She shuddered and turned, gathering her supplies, grateful that they’d been so methodical with their equipment in the long months of having very little work to do. Until now she’d only had to tend to minor wounds and nurse men through some basic illnesses. But she wasn’t like some of the other girls; she had a strong stomach, and she’d survived a childhood that demanded she get on with life. She wasn’t allowed to moan or feel sorry for herself; she’d simply had to survive and keep her chin up, to not let anyone see her pain.
‘Today is a day for saving lives,’ she said loudly. She took a large cotton swab and doused it in alcohol, then placed it against the man’s skin so she could prep the site before putting an IV line in.
His scream sliced through the air at the same moment that bile rose in her throat, as the entire length of skin on his forearm peeled away. She stared in horror before buckling over and vomiting, over and over again until there was nothing left in her stomach, then hurriedly grabbed a vial and filled a needle with morphine. She quickly injected it into the man’s other arm, before noticing that his eyes were shut, the pain already knocking him out cold.
Eva pressed a careful two fingers to his neck, feeling for his pulse as she stared at his chest. Dread pulsed through her as she realized that he was definitely still alive; she’d almost hoped, with his body ravaged by burns and the suffering ahead of him, that he’d slipped away.
‘Help!’ a man yelled.
‘We’ve got three boats filled with the injured!’ another screamed out.
Eva watched as patient after patient started to fill their beds. How could so many men be missing limbs? How were these men even alive still with burns to so much of their bodies?
If this was war, then she had no idea how they were going to survive it. And as bad as this was, she couldn’t decide what would be a worse fate: plunging to her death into the ocean or being taken by the Japanese. But if there was even a chance of her Charlie being alive still? Tears sprang into her eyes as she moved to the next bed, ready to do her best to save every life she could. Then she would do anything she could to stay alive herself. Charlie needed her, and more than anything in the world, she needed him too.
Eva looked up when she heard her name being called, using her blood-smudged forearm to wipe the sweat from her face. Every inch of her was wet, the humidity stifling in the cramped hospital quarters, where every bed and other usable surface was now covered with bodies.
Sally appeared at her side, her eyes still swimming with tears, her face so white she looked like a ghost.
‘Any word?’
Sally shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘And you’ve been trying all morning?’ Eva glanced up at the clock, wondering how it was almost afternoon already. They’d been working for hours without so much as a ten-minute break, and as she glanced around the room, she knew that it’d be ongoing for hours more to come.
‘Sh-should I keep trying?’ Sally stuttered.
Eva nodded. ‘Yes. But keep the executive officer posted if you make contact, won’t you?’ She didn’t know how or why she’d become a person of authority, but the other girls seemed to want to look to her, for her to take charge in the ward, and their matron had been off duty and on land when the attack had begun. They didn’t even know if she was alive or not.
‘He’s been past three times already. I h-have messages to relay if I get through.’
Eva’s patient started to moan again, and she grimaced as she turned back to him, not getting any better at dealing with the horrific burns even after hours of facing them. She wondered, though, if anyone could ever be accustomed to seeing skin peeling from bone, blistered to the point of falling away, or the agony of a man’s face as twisted and contorted in pain as those in front of her.
‘Help me,’ croaked a sailor. ‘Please help me.’
Eva took a deep breath, trying not to smell his skin. She moved forward, careful not to touch him, not about to make the same mistake twice and have entire stretches of skin come off at once.
‘That’s my job,’ she said, trying to sound bright. ‘First I’m going to take the pain away with morphine, and then ...’
She stopped talking when his fingers clasped her wrist, holding her tight, before loosening and falling away. Eva stared at his face, at his open eyes, her breath choking in her throat as she tried to speak again.
‘Sailor!’ she eventually cried, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Please wake up.Please.’
