Page 29 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
But as his lifeless eyes stared back at her, his arm fallen limply over the side of the bed, she knew he was gone. She slowly looked in horror around the entire ward, her stomach clenching as she truly saw what was going on around her. The room was filled with the dead and dying. How many would they even be able to save? Shouts echoed around her, nurses whispered as they tried to figure out what to do, and men groaned and cried out for their mothers and wives. And she just stood there, numb, fighting the pull to fall apart, to just collapse to the ground and give up. Were they all going to die anyway?
‘Morgue?’ someone asked.
She didn’t even bother looking up. ‘Yes.’
And as he was taken, the sailor with no name, the sailor who’d begged her for help, another man was dropped in his place. She sprang forward, not about to rest on her laurels or fall into numbness when someone needed her. It was when she wasn’t needed that she’d slip into a puddle on the floor. She felt like blood had invaded every nook and cranny of the hospital, as if red was now the prevailing color everywhere she looked.
Burns ravaged the man’s body, but this one wasn’t crying or whimpering. He was just staring at her, and she bent low to whisper to him.
‘I’m going to look after you,’ she promised. ‘First comes pain relief, and then I’ll treat your wounds.’
Eva prepared the morphine and slid the needle under his skin, slowly pushing until he’d received it all. She’d given him a lot—she’d had to—and she watched as the relief eventually started, his eyelids fluttering slightly, before she used sulfa powder and mineral oil to treat his burns, methodically working her way over his body, cutting his clothes where she needed to.
And it was then she realized how quiet it had become outside. There were no longer aircrafts buzzing too low or firing at them; the booming quake of American ships firing back had disappeared. She didn’t even know how long it had been quiet. It could have been hours, and she wouldn’t have even realized.
‘Ladies, listen up!’ a man yelled.
She finished with the burn she was treating and paused, wiping her brow again as sweat touched her eyelashes, as their executive officer stood to command near the middle of their ward.
‘This morning has been a nightmare for us all, but I want to commend you all for what you’re doing,’ he said, his voice carrying through the big room. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen next, but we’re all still here, kind of like rats in a trap! We’re just going to carry on as best we can and pray that the worst of the attack is over.’
Eva blinked as tears slipped through her lashes and onto her cheeks. She took a big shuddering breath and shut her eyes for a moment, wondering for the hundredth time whether she was going to survive the day, whether any of them would.
‘I want you all to have a quick break when you can, to catch your breath for ten minutes, and dinner will be served as scheduled.’
The thought of food made her want to vomit, but she knew he was right. Without eating they’d all collapse, and without capable nurses to assist, the injured men had no chance of survival.
‘Have the other boats in the harbor been hit?’ someone called out.
‘I understand that we may be the only vessel that has not been bombed,’ the executive officer replied quietly.
‘What about on land? What’s happened to our boys?’ a nurse asked.
‘And the nurses stationed at the other hospitals?’ Eva called out.
‘We’ve still had no contact at this stage. All lines of communication are currently down; however, we’re attempting to turn a radio on in here for you all to listen to.’
He walked away and left them, and Eva turned back to her patient, her hands surprisingly steady despite the tremor within her body.
If Charlie was dead, she’d never forgive herself. She’d been the one to stop him from leaving; it had beenherbegging him to stay.
She smiled down at the sailor, who was still riding the wave of morphine.
She just needed to believe that some nurse with a kind smile was looking after her Charlie if he was injured. She had to believe. She couldn’t go back to her father. She just couldn’t. Even as she worked to tend to her patient’s horrific burns, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, about what he’d done to her, what he’ddoto her again if she had to return.
His fist connected with her stomach, a powerful blow that puffed the air from her lungs and made her double over. She refused to make a noise, because even a tiny yelp of pain would have given him satisfaction, and she would give him none.
A hand slammed into her shoulder then, forcing her back against the wall, her stomach cramping as she was forced to straighten. And then her father’s fingers clamped around her throat, like claws, holding her tight as his alcohol-tainted breath filled her nostrils.
‘You think you’re better than us, with your fancy boyfriend and your fancy new nursing job, don’t you?’
Eva stared back at him, struggling for air, trying not to cry even as tears involuntarily leaked from her eyes.
‘You leave this house, you’ll never come back. You hear me? Don’t you ever come crawling back here again.’
She squeezed her eyes shut as his grip tightened, wishing her mother would come for her, wishing her mother would yell at him and tell him to leave the house. But she didn’t. Eva knew she’d be cowering in her bedroom, so obedient to a man who’d never treated her right.
He finally let her go, and she slipped to the floor, gasping for breath, her lungs screaming out. But she stayed silent, ready to defy him again if she had to.
