Page 96 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
April surveyed the room. ‘I’ve completed many dressing changes, so I—’
‘This is different, April,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘These men, they might not live through their burns, they’re so severe. It’s why I won’t let them be released into a general ward.’
She nodded.
‘Infection is our enemy,’ he said with a grimace, ‘among a hundred other things, and we don’t exactly have the best working conditions.’
She looked around the room again and decided to start with the closest patient. But as Harry started to walk away, she stopped him.
‘Why me?’ she asked. ‘Why did you ask me to work with you?’
His smile spread slowly across his face, and she saw a kindness reflected in his eyes that she was now realizing had been missing from Dr. Grey’s gaze. She’d just been too awed by the other doctor to notice what he was lacking.
‘Because I don’t want to see a dedicated, ambitious nurse sent home. I already told you that.’
‘It’s honestly as simple as that, then?’ she asked, finding it hard to trust anyone after what had happened to her.
‘Yes, it is.’ He laughed as he turned. ‘And maybe, just maybe, I’d like to spend more time with you.’
April spun around and headed to her first patient before Harry could see how flushed her cheeks were. Part of her was mortified that he’d said that out loud, but another part of her was tingling with excitement that a doctor like Harry would even want to give her the time of day.
After hours of walking the ward and assisting Harry with his checkups, April was struggling to stop her hands from shaking. And he’d been right; even the strongest of stomachs would be capable of balking in the burn ward. They were full, too, with not a bed vacant as she looked up and down the rows.
Dr. Evans had left to perform surgeries, and she’d been left in charge of getting lunch out to all the men, but she was starting to see why no other nurses were quick to put their hands up to transfer into the ward. She touched the shoulder of a patient, a young man who’d openly cried as his dressings had been changed. She held out his food.
‘No,’ he croaked. ‘I can’t eat.’
She sat beside him and forked some of the potato for him. ‘I’ll feed you,’ she said. ‘All you have to do is open your mouth.’
Tears slid down his cheeks, and she had to fight her own tears just looking at him. This poor boy, maybe eighteen or nineteen, had burns to most of his body—he’d have red, scarred skin for life if he even managed to heal before an infection set in, and she bet all he wanted was to go home to his mother. It was like reliving Pearl Harbor all over again, except on land they hadn’t seen the extent of burn injuries like the nurses on the USSSolacehad. Yet another reason, she knew, why Eva had suffered worse than they had through those first few days after the bombing.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered.
‘I’m so hungry,’ he choked out. ‘But I can’t eat with the smell.’
She set the fork down. Why hadn’t she thought of that? The smell must have been so much worse for the men living in their freshly charred bodies than for her walking through the ward.
‘That’s why no one is eating here?’ she asked. ‘It’s not the pain; it’s the smell?’
He slowly nodded. ‘Most of us can deal with the pain.’
April stood and looked at all the men, seeing that only one of them was picking at food. The rest were either refusing or waiting for her to help.
In a split second that she knew could result in suspension again, she left the ward and hurried through the hallways to get outside and race all the way back to her tent. She should have told someone where she was going, although she knew she’d be reprimanded and told to return to her ward, and there was no point if the poor men she was trying to nurse couldn’t stomach any food or water.
‘Nurse! Slow down!’ an older nurse ordered. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Sorry—doctor’s orders,’ she lied as she slowed to a fast walk, running again only when she was outside.
She hurried across the field and then up the hill toward their campsite, not stopping until she reached their tent. She dashed inside and went straight to her toiletries, then grabbed the little glass bottle of perfume she’d brought with her.
‘Why are you panting like that? Aren’t you supposed to be in the middle of a shift?’
‘Grace!’ she gasped. ‘You scared the life from me!’
‘I was sound asleep and woke to heavy panting, and you’re the one who got a fright?’
April held out the bottle, trying to catch her breath. ‘I needed this. I’m trying to get the burns patients to eat.’
