Page 4 of Sands of Sirocco
“Sister …” The other nurse caught her attention.“His pulse is slowing.”
Before Ginger could give the nurse any further direction, the door to the operating theater pushed open once more.The lieutenant marched inside.“Well?”
Ginger felt all the eyes of the operating theater on her.The nurse didn’t know about the lieutenant’s orders, but the orderly did.He busied himself with cleaning the instruments Ginger had set to the side, his head down.
The lieutenant focused on her work with the amputee.His eyes swiveled toward the deserter.Then, his hands clenched, a vein throbbing in his neck.“You disobeyed me?”
Ginger focused on her work, heat rising to her cheeks.Steady hands, now.“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Lieutenant.I’m in the middle of a critical surgery, and you’re interrupting.”Her voice sounded calmer than she felt.
“He’s fading, Sister,” the other nurse said.
“Did you hear?The private is dying!Do something, you useless baggage!”The lieutenant stepped toward the deserter, his hands flailing helplessly.
She could only save one man.Ginger gritted her teeth.And it wouldn’t be the one the army intended to shoot.The soldier had been through enough.Deserters didn’t deserve the death sentence they received.But as she was in no position to change that, she could do this.
Ginger didn’t respond, but her heart pounded.The lieutenant’s presence made her fingers feel more slippery as she held a suturing needle in her fingertips and his body quivered with fury.
The other nurse no longer held the deserter’s wound under compression.Her face was grave.“This one didn’t survive.”
“You bloody woman!”A stream of curses followed, and the lieutenant came toward her.
The orderly stepped between them, keeping the lieutenant away.
The lieutenant shoved a small table set up with equipment, metal clanging.“Do you have any idea what I went through to catch that man?Or what his desertion cost my men?”
The scent of burned flesh filled the space as Ginger began the cauterization.“Lieutenant, I already had a patient.One who didn’t deserve to die at your whims.”
The lieutenant backed away.He studied her, his gaze unnerving.
When she’d finished with the amputation, she directed the other nurse to bandage the wound, then turned her attention to the deserter.
Ginger didn’t want to feel relief, but it came in a slow trickle through her chest.His jaw was slack, the scruff of a few day’s growth on his face.Bruises hid his youth.He couldn’t be too old—in his young twenties, at most.
She prayed the morphine had helped ease his suffering.The bindings that had held him had torn his wrists.He must have struggled to raise the gun toward himself.He’d probably missed his intended target and given himself a much more painful death.
And to think they’d wanted her to prolong his torment.She covered him with a bedsheet to give him some dignity.
“Satisfied with your dereliction of duty?”The lieutenant’s eyes blazed.
Ginger folded her hands in front of her apron.“There was nothing we could do for him.”She gripped her fingers even more tightly.
The lieutenant’s face deepened to a dark flush of scarlet, his lips puckering under his thin moustache.He stepped toward the deceased soldier.The other nurse gave Ginger a questioning look.Ginger shook her head slightly, hoping she would understand not to speak up.
“Women doctors aren’t worth their weight in spit,” the lieutenant said as he started toward the doorway, and Ginger relaxed.
“How dare you?”The nurse stamped her foot with indignation.“To begin with, this nurse is one our finest.And there was little to be done when we had two emergencies at once.”
Despite the nurse’s desire to defend her, Ginger felt a trill of alarm go through her.The lieutenant had been about to leave, which Ginger would have welcomed.She lifted her hand to prevent her from speaking further.“Not to worry, Sister.Emotions are always high when a soldier perishes.”
The lieutenant turned back, his eyes narrowing at the Australian, who slumbered after his surgery.He looked back toward Ginger.“You’re not even a doctor?”
Ginger lifted her chin.Damn it.She set her lips to a line.
With a sneer, the lieutenant pulled a notebook and pencil from his pocket.“I want your name, the hospital where you’re posted, and the name of your superior,” he said to Ginger.
Ginger repressed a sigh, then gave him the information.Just what I need.The train ride back home was, in theory, supposed to be a respite of relaxation.
The lieutenant stared at her name on the notebook, then gave her a menacing look.“There will be consequences for you soon, Sister Whitman.Mark my words.”
