Page 21 of Sands of Sirocco
“I think that’s all for now.”His look was thoughtful.“You read well.Where did you say you were from?”
“Somerset.In England.”She pulled the ribbon to her page, then closed it.“My family’s home was called Penmore.”
“Was called?”Private Emerson squinted.“Did something happen to it?”
She hesitated.She rarely discussed her home or family with patients, though some had commented that they could tell her breeding through her pronunciation.“My father passed away.His estate was entailed away to a distant cousin.”Her hands tightened on the book.“I had a brother, but he died in the war.”Her thumb ran over the gilded printing on the cover.
Private Emerson held her gaze.“I guess in the end we’re all human.War and death don’t discriminate between the rich and the poor.It doesn’t matter how good you are.How evil.If you’re in its path, you simply lose.”
The whimpers of nearby patients, their breath, caught her attention.The humanity.All these broken men—they weren’t like those in the malaria ward or other rooms.What they’d lost they couldn’t recover.
Had they all just been powerless to their fates?
Am I?
“I’m sorry.I didn’t mean to pry.”Private Emerson’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
She gave him a taut smile.“No, not at all.I suppose I’ve always just felt that I could have done more to keep my family from all the destruction.”
“And I thought I was safer as a brakeman for the train than out on the battlefield.”Private Emerson let out a frustrated snort.“And then an emergency stop going down a hill took my leg.”He settled further back against his pillow.“I think you take too much on your shoulders, Sister Whitman.You’re here because you care for others.That’s not the mark of a person who isn’t willing to sacrifice when called upon.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the chastisement.The pressure around her heart didn’t ease, but she felt strangely better at his words.“The truth is you probably were safer as a brakeman—and you’re alive.That’s more than many.”
His lips curled bitterly.“Did you know I opted to work for the engineers because I was scared?Almost blew myself up during training.”
She furrowed her brow.“How did that happen?”
“Erm”—Private Emerson shifted in his bed—“the hand bombs.They have a pin you pull at the top.But you can continue to hold them so long as you grip the lever on the side.The instructor wanted us to learn to hold down the lever, then pull out the pin—to show us that if that lever was down, we were safe.But I fumbled it.Let the lever go too soon.”
If that was the case, how had he survived?“Don’t the hand bombs explode right away, though?”
“No, there’s a delay of a few seconds.That’s what saved me.The instructor snatched it and threw it.But I went right from there and requested to go into the engineering corps after my training.Thought I could spend my days in the army leaving the infantry work to others.So, you see?I’m a coward, really.”
Ginger smirked.“Now who’s the one taking too much on his shoulders?The railway and the engineering corps have been the lifeline of the entire Palestine campaign.”
He didn’t respond, but his expression softened.
She laid the book on the bed.“I’ll leave this in case you’d like to read it on your own when I’m not here.Thank you, Private.Good night.”
She headed back to her room.Still no closer to a decision, the time she’d spent reading to Private Emerson had been a much-needed distraction.More than that, it had reminded her how very much her work gave to her.
“Sister Whitman!”Miss Fitzgibbon’s voice sounded distant.
Ginger held onto the arm of the jaundiced soldier she’d taken for a walk on the grassy hill across the street from the hospital’s main entrance.She blinked in the harsh light, facing the hospital.Matron stood there, waving a handkerchief.
She glanced at her patient.“It looks like they may cut our outing short.Shall we head back?”
The serene blue cloudless sky felt like the wrong backdrop to the turmoil in her mind.The hospital, a group of three multistory rectangular brick buildings with a flat roof, had once served as the Abbassia secondary school of the Egyptian government.
When they reached the front entrance, Miss Fitzgibbons came toward her.“Sister … there’s an officer from the RAMC here to see you.A Captain Stowell.”
“Captain Stowell?”She’d never heard of him.
“In my office.If you don’t mind.Any more visitors there and I might have to start calling it your office.”Matron harrumphed as she took the patient’s arm.“I’ll see your patient to an orderly and meet you there.”She glanced at Ginger’s apron.“Tidy yourself first.”
Splatters of dried blood crusted the apron on the starched and ironed white cloth.She’d spent the morning changing the dressings on her patients.She chuckled at the difference between life at the front and life at the hospitals.If her matron from the clearing station had ever seen her “this dirty,” she would have been impressed with how immaculate Ginger’s apron was.In the desert, there was no escaping grime.
Once inside the hospital, her eyes adjusted to the relative dark inside the foyer.She removed the offending apron and started down the hallway.
