“Are you injured, Corporal…?”
“Bailey. John Bailey. No, Sister. It’s not me.” He pointed at a man on a cot across the tent. “You see the fella there at the very end? Is he all right? Will he be all right?”
“I’m sorry. I really don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to go to him.”
“He’s my brother,” he said quietly. “Please help him.”
She’d heard that before.He’s my brother. He’s my friend.Those beautiful, terrible words tore men apart and scarred her every time.
“Why don’t you go sit with him? I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you,” he said, then took off like a bull toward his brother.
Adele paused to give her patient with the gas gangrene a reassuring touch, but he barely moved in acknowledgement, then she went for a fresh pair of gloves, a bucket of water, and a clean cloth from the trolley before making her way to her new charge.
The chart at the end of the bed readCorporal Jeremiah Bailey, 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company. Facial lacerations, multiple fractured ribs.So these men were tunnellers. Members of the courageous breed who dugbeneaththe trenches, blocking and bombing the Germans. She’d never seen a tunneller before. Not a live one, anyway.
John was hovering over Jeremiah, gently trying to rouse him. The corporal’s face was wrapped in stained linen, so Adele got to work, peeling back the dirty bandages and cleaning the skin underneath. She didn’t want to touch the wrong place and accidentally do more harm, but she had to be thorough. The doctor would need the patient to be clean before he could help with anything. With forceps, she tugged at a piece of gauze, but it was stuck to dried blood. Jeremiah gasped and his eyes flitted open.
“I’m so sorry, Corporal Bailey,” she said, cutting the cloth free with scissors instead.
“Jerry?” John said.
Jeremiah’s eyes rolled to his brother. “I’m all right.”
The words rode on an exhalation, squeezed through motionless lips, husky and quiet, as if made with the least possible effort. But there would have been a great effort made, Adele knew.
“Jesus, Jerry,” John whispered.
She felt the cheek quiver slightly under her cloth in acknowledgement of the sentiment and felt a vague twinge of shame, listening in on such an intimate offering between the brothers. She focused on wringing out the cloth, darkening the water in her bucket to a dull copper brown.
After a few minutes, the left side of Jeremiah’s face was recognizable. It was bruised, and there was a small cut on his brow, but that was all. The damage must be on the other side.
“I’ll just switch spots with you, if you don’t mind,” she said to John.
Once in place, she pressed tentatively against the bandage covering the right side of Jeremiah’s face, feeling for the definition of bone. She’d seen jaws blown off before. The shock of that terrible wound had sent her behind the tent, retching the first and second times. She was more prepared now, but always nervous.
“I’ll be very careful, Corporal Bailey,” she promised, loosening the bandage with a syringe of warm water.
“Jerry. Just call him Jerry, would you? He’s Jerry. I’m John. We’re the Bailey brothers.”
“Of course.” But it was so hard to think of the men in here like that. To give them names and homes and families. It made it so much more difficult to say goodbye.
“Jerry,” she said gently, “I’m going to start under your chin and work my way up, all right?”
He looked at her through clear grey eyes the colour of winter storm clouds, then he blinked slowly before regarding his brother.
John laughed. “Nothing wrong with your vision, I see.”
Adele raised an eyebrow. “Did I miss something?”
“No, Sister,” John said, but she could tell what it was from the guilt in his expression.
It wasn’t the first time she’d heard these kinds of comments or felt the men’s lonely energy. She was aware of them watching her, thinking about her in ways they ought not to, but she didn’t really mind, especially after all they’d been through. There was no harm in their glances. If any of them got the least bit out of hand, all she had to do was touch her veil, and they’d leave off, and so she rarely corrected those who thought she was a nun anymore.
To her relief, Jerry’s jaw was whole. That left his cheek and temple, where the bandages were suffused with dark, almost black blood. Adele straightened, stretching her back, then went for fresh water. When she returned, she set her bucket down and looked at John.
“Would you mind putting your hand on his arm?” she asked. “The pain often makes them reach for the wound, and it will be much easier on him if I can get this done quickly.”
