Page 2 of The Secrets We Left Behind
“On foot? That’s ridiculous.”
“Try telling them that.”
Cate wasn’t even sure whoshe meant bythem, but she knew Lilly was right. They were expected to take orders, not question them.
“Do you think it’s true that some of the nurses have already been evacuated? One of those soldiers back there said an entire group were evacuated from the port here days ago.”
Cate looked back at her and replied with a shrug. “Why would they evacuate some and not others?”
“Honestly, none of this makes sense to me,” Lilly muttered. “No one tells us anything, do they?”
A whir above them sent them both diving for the ground, and Cate tucked tight to Lilly as a German plane flew low, the ground rumbling beneath them. A bomb tore through a nearby building. It was like an earthquake, everything shaking, and Cate grabbed for Lilly’s hand as smoke curled into the air around them. The dust choked her almost instantly, burning her eyes, and as she looked back at the broken town behind them, someone yelled, “Get in!”
“Finally,” Lilly murmured, keeping a tight hold of Cate’s hand as they ran to a lorry, climbing up as it slowly rolled forward.
“Where are we headed?” Cate asked one of the soldiers on board.
“Dunkirk,” he said.
Cate smiled, remembering the village they’d spent time in when they’d first arrived in France. She turned to Lilly, about to speak, when loud shelling sounded out nearby and the screams of men scolded her ears. Instead she just clutched Lilly’s hand and folded it into her lap, thankful she still had her friend beside her.
Please let Dunkirk be better than this.
CHAPTER TWO
CATE
DUNKIRK, FRANCE, MAY1940
Cate stood in the middle of the enormous room and turned, slowly surveying the narrow beds and the last remaining patients lying in them. She shivered, instinctively wrapping an arm around herself as rain started to tap an erratic beat on the roof overhead. There were barely a dozen soldiers in the room, and it was strange to see so few men. For months, they’d faced an endless stream of men passing through their clearance hospitals, so seeing their numbers dwindle was almost more unsettling than the constant injuries she’d had to deal with. Until now, she’d been so busy she hadn’t had time to pause for breath, and that was how she’d liked it. At least then it stopped her from thinking about what might have happened to Charlie. Now the tremor of fear she’d mostly staved off was starting to take hold. She looked down at her hands, balling them to stop the tremble.
They’d arrived at the beautiful chateau in the early hours of the morning, running on little sleep and even less food, and by the time they’d finished setting up, there hadn’t been time to rest. They’darrived in lorries full of surgeons, orderlies and nurses, as well as patients and supplies, and although it was vastly superior being in a house rather than a tent, or the old school building in Calais, it wasn’t helping her to settle. They were a clearance hospital, and they’d been told it would only be so long before they were inundated with men. Cate looked around again, surveying the room, so at odds with the canvas tents she was used to operating under. The walls were painted a soft duck-egg blue; luxurious drapes were still hanging, pulled back with elegant gold, plaited ropes. It was the most beautiful room she’d ever set foot in. She turned, imagining it filled with immaculately dressed couples, perched on sofas as they sipped wine, waiting to rise and be called to dinner, before the war.
As more and more orderlies arrived to assist with the evacuation and filed into the room, she forced herself to continue with her rounds, forgetting the possible past of the beautiful chateau and checking on her last remaining patients instead. It was the calm before the storm, because she knew instinctively that ambulances would start to arrive in their droves sooner rather than later, perhaps before she was even able to take her break. Her shifts seemed to merge together now; there was never enough time or enough orderlies or nurses to deal with the influx of men.
It was impossible for there to be so much gunfire nearby andnotend up with countless casualties as a result, and so Cate started to hum, doing her best to block it all out, to stay focused on what she was there to do. The irregular popping of guns, blasts from bombs and German aircraft sporadically flying and firing overhead had become a background noise that no longer startled her, but today, knowing the Nazis were likely coming as the British troops started to lose ground, she couldn’t help but be frightened. They’d placed a large red cross made of fabric on the grass outside the chateau, and so far the Germans had respected it as they’d avoidedbeing bombed, but it hardly made their makeshift hospital invincible and they all knew it.
“How are you holding up?”
Cate paused at the sound of Lilly’s voice. Her friend’s flushed cheeks and red-rimmed eyes made Cate wonder if she looked the same: equal parts exhausted and terrified of what was to come next. She longed for a good night’s sleep and a bath, anything to quell her nerves and create a sense of normalcy again. But she doubted that was going to happen, despite the elegant rooms upstairs almost begging to be filled. What she wouldn’t give to tiptoe upstairs and fall into one of the beds, or draw herself even a few inches of hot water in the bath.
“I honestly don’t know,” she replied, forgetting her fantasy as quickly as she’d thought it. “One minute I feel oddly calm, and the next I’m a nervous wreck. How about you?”
“I just want to know what’s happening,” Lilly said, her voice low. “Surely they’ll start to evacuate us soon, if it’s really that bad out there? One of the other girls thinks they’ll just leave us behind, but I don’t believe they’d ever do that to us.”
Cate started.Surely they won’t leave us?“I’m sure they’ll get us out of here soon,” she said. “Or maybe they’re still hoping to turn this battle around and that’s why we haven’t received orders?” She shuddered. Now that she thought about it, maybe they would have to stay regardless, to keep tending to those left behind. Perhaps the nurses were simply the last to know?
Lilly gave her a quick hug and continued on towards her patients, and Cate stared after her for a moment, remembering how excited and positive they’d been when they first arrived. Those first days at sea and then walking arm in arm through the streets of Dunkirk seemed a lifetime ago now; then, she’d thought they’d spend a few months working as nurses before she was reunited with her fiancé by Christmas. How wrong she’d been. And why was itthat no one was telling them what was happening? Everything they knew came in snippets from the soldiers arriving, and although she’d pieced together as much as she could, she still had no idea how long they’d be staying, or what was going on. Besides, it couldn’t really be as bad as rumors had it; she was convinced the direness of the situation was being exaggerated. Could the German army really defeat the British, French and Belgium forces combined? She picked up the bandages she’d come looking for to give her hands something to do, hoping she wasn’t being overly naïve in her thoughts.
“Nurse Cate?”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw one of the injured soldiers watching her. Cate had been nursing since the very beginning of the war, and she’d tried so hard not to form attachments to any of her patients. She’d felt pain and sadness for them often, and held more hands and tended more wounds than she could count, but it wasn’t until recently she’d been in danger of developing feelings for one of the men in her care. Before, Charlie had always been so clear in her mind, but lately, he’d started to fade, and she no longer saw his face in the soldiers who passed through her hospital every day.
Now, she could barely walk past without this particular man turning her head, and she went to great lengths to make sure Lilly didn’t see. After the news they’d received about Charlie ... She gulped, forcing the thoughts from her mind, not wanting to remember. It only made her feel worse about her growing attraction for her patient. And sitting with him through the night as they’d traveled in the lorry hadn’t helped her feelings any, either.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” she asked.
“Get me out of here?” he joked.
