Page 3 of Sands of Sirocco
Squaring her shoulders, Ginger gave him a look of disbelief.“You want me to ‘patch him up’ so you can execute him later?”The Australian soldier she’d been preparing for surgery mumbled.He couldn’t afford this waste of time.“My good sense and my ethics prevent me from participating in your sense of justice, sir.”
Ducking his chin, the lieutenant reddened.“You won’t treat him?That doesn’t conflict with your ‘ethics’?”He loomed over her.“You think you can meddle because you’re a lady doctor, but you can’t.We stopped this train for this traitor here”—he pointed a finger at the deserter—“to get treatment as soon as possible.And this train will sit here until he does.I have my orders.Now do it.We’ll be right here.”
Arguing with him would be useless and only cost her precious time.The irony of it all was that if shewerea doctor, her rank equivalent would be to a captain—above this man.Not that the RAMC had done female physicians the courtesy of bestowing them a true rank.They faced even more trouble than the nurses did.
The lieutenant would have to go.Then she could do whatever needed to be done.
At last, she nodded stiffly.“But you can’t stay in the operating theater.You can stand guard outside if you wish.You’re filthy and could expose this other patient to infection.”Would he listen?She’d hedged her only chance on doing this her way on the cooperation of a disobliging man.
The lieutenant scanned her face with wary eyes.Sucking in a breath through his teeth, he left, accompanied by his men.
They left a vacuum of stale air.Ginger glanced at the orderly and motioned toward the deserter.“Give that man a shot of morphine.”Her voice was low, her nerves high.How much time did she have before the lieutenant checked in?
She returned to the Australian.Putting her fingers to his wrist, she felt for his pulse, which was faint.“We need to hurry with the amputation.”
The orderly leaned over the deserter, syringe in hand.“And this one?”
“Let’s make him as comfortable as we can for now.Unbind his hands, to start.”Ginger lifted her head as the door opened once more.The other nurse had returned with the guillotine on a cart.
The nurse gaped at the deserter.“And this new one?”She wrung her hands.“This is the oddest stop, wouldn’t you say?Two patients for surgery all at once?”
“We’ll carry on as best we can.The amputation first.You can disrobe the new one.Then compress his wound.”Ginger swept the stray strands of her flame-colored hair behind her head into a tight knot as the nurse moved toward the equipment.
“Do you need sterile gloves?”The nurse looked at Ginger, her face pale.
Ginger bit her lip.“Do you have any that will fit me?”
The nurse shook her head.
“Then, no.They’ll only get in the way.”The rubber was too thick and cumbersome if she used gloves meant for a man.She’d be more accurate with her fingers.
She went to the washbasin and scrubbed her hands with soap before sterilizing them.The barren wall of the train, whitewashed after the British Army had commandeered it from passenger service in Egypt, reminded her of how many people it took to help the troops.She’d worked in tents, in hospital ships, on islands, in hospitals, in former hotels, and under the light of the moon with no cover at all.
“This soldier has a chest wound,” the nurse said, peeling back the rag from the deserter’s injury.
“Compression.Quickly, Sister.”
A chest wound.In a blink, her mind was back in the desert, with Noah struggling to breathe as she sought to keep his lung from collapsing.And, nearby, the bodies of her father and brother …
But she couldn’t let her mind wander there.
They worked at a brisk pace, the urgency of the procedure weighing equally heavily in Ginger’s mind as the thought of that lieutenant stalking outside the room.If he came in and saw her neglecting the deserter, would he make a scene?She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by him.The poor Australian brakeman wouldn’t even be in this situation if it hadn’t been for the train stopping.
The orderly worked as her assistant as she tended to the wound above the laceration first.She’d need to clean and cauterize the wound, to staunch the bleeding, then cut the flap of skin for the stump.The guillotine would be last.
When she’d trained as a nurse, she’d never expected to do work like this.Noble thoughts of tending to soldiers had included visions of holding hands, wiping brows, and spooning soup to lightly wounded men in proper hospitals.
How different it had all turned out to be.
The wounds had been macabre and the tactics of warfare, horrific.When the nurses had first arrived at the “hospitals” in Egypt, they’d found dirty buildings unfit to sleep in, let alone treat patients.They’d had to start by scrubbing floors.
And the tropical diseases—brought about by flies, heat, mosquitoes, lice—she’d never even considered those.She’d had malaria once.Seen orderlies and nurses die of typhus.The destruction had been immeasurable and unforgettable.
She’d learned techniques for wound irrigation the RAMC had considered too complex for them at the start of the war.Those hesitations by the brass had vanished when nurses became a necessity.
And though she didn’t want to admit it to herself, part of her hesitation in applying for medical school lay in all the awfulness she’d experienced.She was exhausted—and not just physically.
Before this, she’d scoffed at the idea of being destined for marriage and motherhood.Now, that sounded like a wonderful future.She’d had her fill of war.
