“Lizzie,” he says, grabbing my hand before I open the door. “I’m sorry. Look, this isn’t good. For either of us, okay? This war is about to take a turn for the worse. I can’t lie. I don’t know what either of us will face in the coming weeks.”
My eyes threaten to fill with tears, but I inhale and stare up to the metal ceiling of the car.
“Okay. I understand.”
“Take this envelope and keep it safe—keep it in your journal. The unit I’m leaving with written down inside, and a few other things I hope you will not need. Your necklace is also inside. I need you to keep that in a hidden pocket of a uniform you aren’t wearing during your time in France. It’s not safe with me at the moment. I can’t explain this in much more detail, but please do not keep it on you.”
This time, the tears come without warning and it’s one of the few times I have cried in front of Everett. I’m not one to use emotions to express myself. I find words to be more practical but I’m experiencing more than pain, more than fear, more than despair, and there are no adequate words to describe how I feel. Everett pulls me across the seat and under his arm, nuzzling my head against his chest.
“We’ve made it this far, Lizzie. Let’s not throw in the towel. We can get through this too.”
For the first time in the last two years, I don’t feel confident in what I can handle. Until now, I don’t believe I’ve even seen a fraction of what Everett has. I feel weak, and it’s maddening because I need to be strong.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“Always, doll-face. Don’t forget how powerful those clouds are, okay? If you need me, you know I’m there.”
My body shudders and I sniffle as I tilt my head back to kiss him. He reaches for my cheek, but with a sense of reluctance. I feel his body stiffen beneath his touch as he brushes his lips against mine. It isn’t a passionate goodbye like we’ve shared so many times before. This is just a goodbye.
43
July 1944
We can describethe front lines as a meeting point between two sides; us and the enemy, and that is where our evacuation hospital now is, so we can take in the vast number of casualties that we anticipate. We’re five miles from Beachhead in Normandy. Walls no longer surround us while we tend to patients. Instead, we have set up a camp full of hand-secured canvas tents where we will sleep, eat, and treat. Large sets of artillery surrounding the camp are in place to protect us, but with the German planes cruising through the skies every night, each minute I’m alive feels like a blessing.
All the military units in the vicinity are in a constant battle, and our nursing personnel works into two shifts. All of us have an assignment to various tents to keep casualties organized and handled with standard routine. I’m tending to the shock unit which is at capacity each day. Many tests are necessary to diagnose and treat the varying degrees of shock, since the source of a patient’s condition is not always obvious.
There isn’t a moment to stop and blink, which is best for my current state of mind, and my downtime should be for sleeping, but I’m not sure many of us can close our eyes without seeing the horrific visions from our days.
Several weeks have passed since the passive goodbye Everett and I shared in front of the hospital in Scotland. I know he was deploying to France, but I know nothing more. Whatever isn’t occurring in front of us isn’t news we often come across. Communication is sparse and when we have a few seconds to take a breath and think, we can only manage to wonder how much worse things will get. And when I see our planes whizzing through the sky, all I can do is watch and wonder if one of them is Everett, but I will never know.
My tent is unusually quiet with most of my patients being unconscious or drowsy from head trauma or other injuries. I’m constantly monitoring bodily temperatures, infusing the intravenous bags with pain medication, and ensuring I keep the men warm and comfortable. When I see a man with a lifeless stare, I wonder if they are on the brink of death, silently whispering their goodbyes to their loved ones.
“We need to stop those bastards. Do you hear me?” Herbert Donning cries out. He’s a member of the infantry who pushed forward through Beachhead against the Germans. They shot him multiple times and beat him close to death before anyone could rescue him. His serious wounds are on the mend, but psychologically, he seems lost in a faraway place we are having trouble pulling him back from.
I place the back of my hand on his forehead, finding his temperature to be holding steady in a normal range, but he’s inconsolable. “Herbert, sweetheart, look at me,” I tell him, taking a seat on the edge of his cot. “No one is going to hurt you here. You’re safe and everything is going to be okay.”
“They shot him right in the face like he was nothing more than a tin can. But, no, they had not inflicted enough damage, so they had to keep going. They mutilated him and didn’t stop until they determined he was dead. But they will not stop. No. Until we’re all like that—with no faces.” Herbert doesn’t blink while he speaks. “I tried to help, Miss. I swear I did, but they took the others.”
“Herbert, what does that mean?” I ask, trying to understand so I can figure out how to calm him down.
“They’re prisoners. Our men. They took them. They’re going to torture and kill them.”
We haven’t heard news about any of our men becoming prisoners, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Herbert hasn’t been making sense with everything he says, and it’s hard to decipher what might be fact or something conjured up in his mind.
“Someone will find them,” I say.
“Without the airborne. We need our pilots.”
His words shoot through me like a dagger, but I have to take a deep breath and remind myself how many airborne units we have, as well as pilots, and paratroopers. “You’re right, Herbert, we do.”
“We’ll never get home.”
Herbert continues talking in circles until he falls into a trance-like stare, as he does every few hours.
I’m warming bottles for newer patients who I haven’t regulated temperatures for yet when Beverly storms into my tent. “Did you hear?”
I shrug at her dramatization. “Hear what, Beverly?”
