Page 83 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
April shivered as she watched Dr. Evans leave the room and then turned and surveyed the blood on the floor and the instruments still covered in fluid and blood on the table. Someone would be taking the fall for this, and she had a feeling it would be her.
‘April, you look like you’ve seen a ghost! What’s wrong?’ Grace asked as she made her way into the tent and collapsed on her bed later that night. Even with all the bedding and clothes beneath it to try to make it comfortable, it was impossible to mask the stony, hard ground beneath.
Eva and Grace were both sitting up now, both awake, their faces bathed in a combination of light and shadows from the gaslight burning between them.
‘I think I’m about to lose my job,’ she said, her voice devoid of emotion as she stared at the ceiling of the tent.
‘What are you talking about?’ Grace asked. ‘What happened?’
‘Dr. Grey kissed me this morning,’ she confessed. ‘Only on the cheek, but he also told me how pretty I looked, or that I lit up the ward or something.’
‘And you’re going to lose your job because he kissed you?’ Eva asked.
‘No,’ she said, pulling up her blanket over her uniform. ‘I’m going to lose my job because he’s married and something happened during a surgery that he’s trying to blame on me.’ She wished she could remember, but all the surgeries had seemed to blur in her mind.
‘He’s married!’ Grace choked out. ‘He was so—I don’t know—flirty with you all the time. How is that your fault?’
‘And what can he possibly blame on a nurse?’
April filled them both in, telling them exactly what had happened and why she thought she was going to be sent home.
‘It’s not over until it’s over,’ Eva said firmly. ‘If Dr. Evans sticks up for you and tells the truth, then—’
‘Nurse April Bellamy!’ came a brisk call. ‘Please step outside your tent.’
April froze.
‘Get up,’ whispered Eva. ‘Maybe it’s good news.’
April slowly pushed the blanket back and rose, her feet heavy as she trod toward the tent opening, holding the gaslight as she emerged outside.
‘Yes,’ she said, surprised to see their head nurse, Matron Johnson, waiting for her, with a doctor by her side.
‘Nurse Bellamy, we’ve had a serious complaint made about you by one of our most senior doctors,’ she said. ‘We’re placing you on leave pending an investigation into the allegations.’
‘On leave?’ she asked. ‘I’m one of your hardest-working nurses! I love what I do. What use is there having me sitting in a tent when I could be helping?’
The older woman’s face didn’t change. ‘I’m sorry, but our decision is final.’
She stood outside the tent in the dark, watching the old matron go. She dropped to her knees then, sobbing as she fell forward into the dirt. Because just like that, all her dreams of ever being a doctor were gone. She’d never get into medical school as a failed nurse.Never.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GRACE
‘Come on—it’ll do you both good to go for a swim,’ Eva said. She opened the tent up to air it out before hanging her spare clothes up to dry from a piece of string as they looked on.
‘I’d rather sleep,’ Grace mumbled, but she finished getting dressed anyway. She’d woken from a dream about Poppy, chasing her friend on the beach and splashing in the water, and she’d rather have fallen straight back into it than gotten up. Some days she missed her so much; she’d give anything to hear Poppy laugh or just sit and talk with her. But April needed to get out and do something to take her mind off the suspension, and she wasn’t going to be lazy when her sister needed her. April was always there for her, she’d looked after her for years, and hurting or not, she was going to help her.
‘I might just stay,’ April said. ‘You both have fun, though.’
‘April Bellamy! Get your shoes and your sun hat; we’re going out whether you like it or not,’ Eva declared. Grace gave a little salute. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She received a glare from Eva in return, and she liked it. Eva had really started to emerge from under the dark cloud she’d been trapped in, and it was nice to see the old her again.
‘Come on; let’s go. I don’t want to waste a second of today in this god-awful tent.’
Grace put her hat on as Eva grabbed her arm. ‘Someone’s got cabin fever today,’ she said, clasping Eva’s hand.
‘Someone’s sick to death of nursing an invalid with no understanding of how lucky he is to be alive,’ she grumbled.
