He placed his hand on Jerry’s forearm, but only rested it there. Maybe he didn’t understand.
“Hold tight,” she advised.
John shook his head, unconcerned. “He won’t move.”
She wanted to tell him that he had no idea, that she’d seen it a hundred times, but she didn’t feel like lecturing. How hard it must be to see his brother like this. She couldn’t imagine watching Marie suffer. It would be so much more difficult than being in pain herself, she thought.
Jerry’s eyes had closed, though she saw movement beneath. He let out a long breath, preparing himself, and she did the same.
She started slowly. The veins in Jerry’s neck pulsed with effort, but his brother was right. He didn’t cry out, and his hands never reached to stop her as she removed the gauze, revealing two very deep cuts. One carved a straight, horizontal line from beneath his ear and through his bristled cheek, so that she could see the bloodied white of his teeth. Miraculously, the damage had stopped beneath his nose, on his lip. The second laceration ran from almost the same spot under his ear and passed across the bridge of his nose, terrifyingly close beneath his eye.
“How did this happen?” she asked. “It looks like shrapnel. Weren’t you underground?”
“We were, but Germans broke through, set off acamouflet,” John said, sagging slightly. “That’s how they got in.”
“Germans were in your tunnel?”
“They dig their own, and our paths can cross. Sometimes it works in our favour. Not this time.”
“Aren’t those tunnels quite narrow?”
“Yes, ma’am. About three or four feet wide, maybe five feet from the floor to ceiling. The hard part is knowing in the dark who you’re standing beside. You don’t want to kill the wrong man.”
“How can you tell who’s who?”
He tapped his shoulder with one hand. “The Germans have epaulettes on their uniforms. We don’t. We feel for them.”
Adele stopped, speechless. In her mind she saw the men in the murky blackness underground, fumbling desperately for that extra bit of fabric on the shoulders of the enemy’s coats.
A huff of air escaped Jerry’s nose, and she turned her attention back to him.
“I didn’t find out until after we killed the Germans that Jerry’d been hit by the blast,” John went on. “He’d been thrown back, but the shrapnel caught him on the way. He was buried when I got to him.”
She shouldn’t have asked. Somehow, out of necessity, she’d hardened herself to the things she saw in the hospital day in and day out, but hearing how the wounds before her had been inflicted made them so real.
“Thank God you found him,” she whispered as she wrung her cloth out one last time.
Considering the extreme damage, the pain resulting from her tender touch should have been practically unbearable, and yet Jerry hadn’t flinched. She hoped there wasn’t nerve damage.
“The doctor will be by soon to stitch you up. He’s very good, but you will have a scar, I’m afraid.”
“Too bad, Jerry. Like I’ve always said, you’ll never be as handsome as me.”
“Some ladies like scars,” Adele teased.
John’s low-throated laugh filled the hushed room. Jerry closed his eyes, and she thought maybe he was smiling inside.
“I gotta get back,” John said eventually.
Jerry stiffened. Adele saw the pull between them as if it were a rope drawn tight. John clearly wanted to embrace his brother but settled for a light pat on the shoulder, then Jerry lifted a hand and his brother clasped it.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful,” John said, then he turned to Adele. “Look after him, all right?”
“I will,” she promised.
Jerry watched John until he disappeared, a sparkle of tears at the corners of his eyes.
“It’s okay, Jerry,” she said. “You’re safe. I’ll take care of you.”
