Page 32 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
The nurse shook her head, and April thanked her, wondering if she should hold on to her or not. Half the nurses looked like they were about to keel over, either from exhaustion, the heat, or what they’d been through. She grimaced.More likely a combination of all three.
‘Grace!’
‘Under here,’ came a muffled call. Only it belonged to a distinctly male voice, not a woman.
April bent when she saw a boot protruding from beneath the bed. ‘Who’s under there?’ she asked.
And then she saw Grace, huddled to the back, and the man whom the boot belonged to lying on his side in the confined space.
‘Grace! What are you doing under here?’ she asked, shuffling forward on her knees and reaching out a hand to her sister.
‘She won’t say anything,’ the man said. ‘She was my nurse until all this happened, and she was fine for a while, but then she just collapsed. I don’t know what happened.’
April quickly blinked away tears, as much from exhaustion as emotion. She shouldn’t have left her sister after they’d both seen Poppy’s body, but she’d stayed with her as long as she could, and if she hadn’t gone, how many men wouldn’t have received treatment? A group of horrifically burned men had been brought in right after she’d run off to help, meaning to come back at once.
‘It’s okay; I’ll talk to her,’ she said. ‘And what are you doing under here anyway?’
‘I moved to make space for whoever needed the bed more than me. If I could have gone out and fought, I would have.’
April had seen every able-bodied and almost abled man flee from the hospital the second they’d realized they were under attack. One man had even cut off the cast on his arm so he could get out and fight. So she could only imagine how frustrated this patient was not to be able to go.
‘Where are you hurt?’ she asked. ‘Should I try to find somewhere else for you?’ His arm was in a sling, and she could see from the grimace when he moved that he wasn’t comfortable.
‘I’m just fine here. I can tell from the howling that those men in the beds need the comfort more than me.’
‘Well, at least tell me if you need some pain relief,’ she said. ‘And thank you for looking after Grace. She’s witnessed some terrible things today.’
She waited for him to say ‘haven’t we all,’ but he didn’t, smiling at Grace instead.
‘You keep singing when you feel better,’ he said to Grace cheerfully. ‘Having a little songbird around is enough to keep everyone fighting for their lives.’
‘Hang on—weren’t you the one who was on the desk, trying to make contact with the other hospitals?’ She’d been trying to work out why he looked so familiar.
‘Someone else took over, so I came back under here. And that’s when I found this one.’
April reached for Grace and helped her out from beneath the bed, wrapping her arms around her like she would a small child and sitting on the floor with her. She’d heard her sister singing earlier, and it had been like listening to their mother, her soft, melodic voice drifting through the ward. It was one of the things she’d noticed the most when she’d died; their house seemed so quiet all the time. There was no humming as their mother went from room to room with freshly folded laundry, or singing as she cooked dinner. The house had seemed empty without her, the only reminder the perfume that still lingered in the air, wafting from her bedroom.
‘Grace, I’m going to get you something to eat,’ April said. ‘You need to keep your strength up.’
Grace’s face crumpled as April stared down at her. Her heart broke for her sister, but as she held her, her own tears disappeared. It had been the same way when their mother had passed; April had stepped up to look after her younger sister and care for their dad when he couldn’t even get out of bed, and instead of sobbing along with Grace, she’d simply taken over every duty that their mom once had. At first she’d loved it; everyone had told her what a good girl she was, how dependable she was, and she’d liked the attention. It had taken her mind off what had happened and kept her busy. But over time she’d started to resent always having to be the sensible one, always having to run their household and keep up with school and anything else that was going on in their lives that their father should have dealt with. But today she just wanted to hold her sister, and as much as she was missing Poppy, as much as she knew she’d have nightmares about what had happened right in front of them, she needed to care for Grace. And she needed them both to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
‘Grace, I need you to listen to me,’ she said softly, still holding her sister.
Grace clung to her as she stroked her back.
‘Right now, we have men who need us. Without us, they’ll die or suffer terribly,’ April said. ‘What happened to us,to Poppy, it’s terrible. But we can’t give up.’
Grace started to cry again then, softly into April’s shoulder, just as the room exploded with noise again. More men were being brought in, more to add to the never-ending stream, and she knew they couldn’t just sit there in a puddle on the ground for the rest of the day.
‘I want you to go back to doing the injections and checking pain levels,’ she instructed. ‘That’s something you can do. It’s something weneedyou to do.’
Grace sat back, and April gently brushed her thumbs across her cheeks.
‘I need to hear you say yes, Grace,’ April said. ‘Tell me you can do it?’
Grace nodded and whispered, ‘I can do it.’
April kissed her forehead, then stood, holding out a hand and pulling her sister to her feet. She studied her, watched as she swayed on her feet slightly before meeting her gaze.
