Page 53 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
April nodded, grabbing her sister’s hand as they hurried back into the hospital. She had this awful feeling that the planes could be behind them, that a German pilot could have them in his sights and be stealthily following them, waiting to fire at the hospital and take them all out.
She kept glancing over her shoulder until they were about to walk in the door to their ward, but there was only ever silence.
‘Oh heavens,’ April whispered as she surveyed the ward. Less than half an hour earlier, all the men had been asleep, and now there were only tangled sheets and bare wire bed bases to greet them.
‘What happened in here?’ Grace asked. ‘What—’
‘They’re under the beds,’ Eva muttered. ‘We should never have stayed outside and left them alone.’
While they’d been watching, their poor patients had been terrified, and as April dropped low to the ground and peered under the beds closest to her, she found the men huddled, most of them curled up like little babies. Some had their mattresses tucked over them, ready for the worst.
‘Let’s start with one each at a time,’ she said quietly, glancing at the other two. ‘We’ll have to medicate them as we go.’ These poor battle-fatigued men were still acting as if they were on the front line, trying desperately to protect themselves. While they’d been out watching the spectacular air display, their patients had been hiding, expecting to be killed.
‘There you go,’ April whispered as she coaxed her first patient out. ‘It’s all over. You’re going to be just fine.’
She wrestled with the first mattress and got it back on the bed, then quickly tucked the sheets in while her soldier-patient dropped to the ground again and curled into a ball, rocking back and forth. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EVA
Sweat tickled the back of Eva’s neck as she walked, the dry grass beneath her feet crunching as they crossed the field and neared where the planes had been battling the night before. They hadn’t had any opportunities to explore until now; setting up and preparing the hospital had taken up any time they had in between shifts, but they’d been given permission to leave camp today, and Grace had been eager to get out and see what Casbah had to offer. Grace was like a child in a candy store for the first time, desperate to see everything and soak in their new surroundings.
Eva could easily have stayed behind and spent longer in bed, not caring how hot their tent was during the middle of the day, but Grace was having none of it, and April wasn’t about to leave her behind if Grace was dragging her out.
‘Do you think it was near here?’ Grace asked.
Eva looked behind them at where the hospital was located and then in front again, trying to picture exactly where the battle had taken place. ‘I suppose. We must be close, anyway.’
She thought she could recognize where they were, but then again it had been nighttime, and it could have been miles farther away. And there was a big part of her that didn’t want to see the wreckage or think about what had happened to those pilots; she’d rather have walked briskly past any carnage.
‘Oh my lord, there it is.’
Eva stopped walking and followed Grace’s point, her mouth hanging open, but Grace wasn’t going to let them stand around.
‘Quickly, come on!’
She half expected a German to leap out and shoot them, wild eyed and ready to kill, even though she knew no one could have survived such a crash. Their own soldiers would have stormed the area and secured it by now; any Germans that had lived through the ordeal would have been brought to their hospital or taken prisoner. This was as safe as anywhere. But it still sent goose bumps coursing across her skin just seeing the plane with the swastika and knowing it had been sent on a reconnaissance mission to see where they were all based and what they were doing. If they’d succeeded in their mission, they could all have been dead within days or hours.
There was another plane farther away, and Eva hoped they weren’t going to have to inspect the remains of that one too. She breathed in fast, short pants just thinking about the pilots involved.
‘Can’t we just keep walking?’ she asked.
‘No!’ Grace insisted almost immediately. ‘Can you believe that we’re standing beside this? Isn’t it huge?’
Eva caught April’s eye and gave her a quick smile, hoping to convince her that she was okay, but as her legs began to shake, she quickly bent down before they buckled and gave way.
Was this what Charlie’s plane had looked like? Had the front been smashed like this and the wing broken? She shuddered as she saw the dark-red splatter across the glass. That was the pilot’s blood. They might be enemies, but he was another human being, and weren’t they all just doing what they were being told to do by their own country? Would his wife or sweetheart—his mother, for that matter—hate Americans as much as she hated the Japanese and Germans?
‘Eva?’ April asked, her hand hovering over her shoulder as she bent low beside her.
‘I’m fine,’ she managed. ‘It’s just ...’
‘Come on, Grace. We only have a few hours, and didn’t you want to explore the town?’
Grace suddenly turned from the plane and waved them on. ‘You’re right. Let’s go.’
Eva clasped April’s hand as they walked away, and she held on tight, needing the contact to keep her going. Some days she felt like she was about to collapse, like she couldn’t keep going no matter how hard she tried, but somehow April was always there. It was as if April knew just when she was about to give up. Eva looked over her shoulder one last time, the pain hitting her in the chest, imagining Charlie’s final moments, hoping he’d died instantly and hadn’t suffered or even known what was happening. It didn’t matter what anyone said to her; she doubted she’d ever stop feeling guilty for holding him back instead of letting him go.
