TDTLBU Chapter Fifty

"There was a nurse here last night," Mac told the surgeon the next morning, wondering how exactly to approach the subject. "She… I was wondering what her name was…" he finished lamely and cringed inwardly.

"There are approximately sixty-five nurses and nurse aides that work here," the doctor spoke absently, pushing his spectacles farther up the bridge of his nose as he inspected the stump of Mac's leg. It had been amputated in a field hospital four days after the invasion, but the surgery had been hastily done and poorly executed. The exhausted doctors of the evacuation hospital had been rushing like madmen to stabilize hundreds of wounded men and no one received the full amount of attention they truly needed. Mac would still need extensive surgery to pull him through to recovery.

"Well this one… she helped me last night… I've been having flashbacks, y’know? Nightmares of the invasion… I haven't been able to sleep in days. I just… wanted to thank her… that's all."

He never got a straight answer to his question although the doctor vaguely said something about looking at the roster to see who was on shift the night before. But hours passed by without a word and Mac felt sure the doctor had forgotten. He tried to brush it off… surely the nurse would be back… if she really did exist. But he couldn't stop thinking about her. Admittedly though, there wasn't much else to think about, lying there flat on his back and staring at the ceiling while the minutes slowly ticked by. Except the war, of course, but he was prepared to do anything in his power by way of forgetting what he had seen in the past two years.

"How are you doing?" A cheerful voice interrupted his thoughts and he turned to see a young girl in a nurse's uniform smiling down at him. He was startled. The moment he looked into those soft, golden-brown eyes, he was a goner. He couldn't look away, transfixed by the face before him. So familiar… so beautiful… and that smile. In that smile and those eyes, he saw everything he ever wanted for the rest of his life.

“Katie…” he murmured, so quietly, she didn’t hear him. He kicked himself mentally as soon as he said it. Strange, of course, that he should meet a girl who looked exactly like Katie’s picture, but it wasn’t her. Couldn’t be. Life never turned out that way… after all, he wasn’t living in a fairy tale. He forced himself back to the present, finally answering her question.

"I'm bored out of my mind," he grinned half-heartedly. "Any chance we could get up a game of baseball? Football would be even better. Anything, really. I’ve gotten so used to battlefields I don’t know what to do with myself."

"Well I doubt I could arrange that," the girl answered, laughing. "But right here I've got the best reason the hospital is better than the battlefield."

"Honestly, I could think of a hundred reasons. But what is this one, specifically?"

"Food that isn't a k-ration."

"Ah. I see what you mean. So… no canned cheese or spam?"

"Not even their ghosts." She moved to adjust his pillow so he could sit up, keeping up a lively chatter all the while. "In a few days, if you're feeling up to it, you'll be able to join the other men in the cafeteria for meals. They'll get you started on crutches maybe tomorrow and into a prosthesis in a couple of weeks."

"And then?"

"And then it's home, soldier," she smiled. "Home as soon as you're able."

"Are you sure that the food is the best thing about the hospital?" Mac grinned. "Because I think it's you."

“Oh, no, it’s the food for sure,” she laughed as she slid a tray from a wheeled cart. She was used to hearing such things from the soldiers and had learned how to positively deflect comments of that nature. “I’ll be back to collect the dishes when you’re done.”

He was starving, but he didn’t touch his food at first, although it was steaming hot and smelled ultimately better than anything he had eaten in the past two years. Instead, he watched the nurse as she moved across the ward, still passing out meals. He knew she was the nurse from last night. He recognized her voice. She moved so gracefully that with every step she looked almost as if she were dancing. The bright smile never left her face and it seemed to light up the entire ward. He couldn’t tear his eyes from her. 

But then he remembered that she had promised to return when he was finished. He tore into his food recklessly, determined to finish it off as quickly as possible.

 ✯✯✯

Colors and shapes slowly swam into focus before Josh's eyes. He squinted, trying to sort it all out and bring it into focus. But he gave in to the terrible ache pounding in his skull. With a sigh of frustrated exhaustion, he let his eyes fall shut again. He was vaguely aware of a gentle hand caressing his cheek, of a distantly-familiar voice speaking softly to him. For a long moment he lay still, not even attempting to force his eyes open. He just listened to the words and tried to remember where he had heard that voice before.

"You're going to be alright, I promise. They've shredded you up pretty bad, but we've put you back together again, and you're going to be okay, Josh. I need you to try and eat, gotta get your strength up. C'mon, Scout, I know you can hear me."

“Emma…” he rasped, surprised to find that it was even harder to talk than he had thought it would be. His tongue felt thick and swollen, his throat dry and scratchy as sandpaper. 

“Shh… don’t try to talk.” 

He felt her slip a hand behind his head as she lifted a glass of water to his lips. He drank thirstily, ignoring her warnings to slow down, feeling as though he were dying in the desert. She pulled the glass away to fill it again and he clutched at her wrist desperately, drinking so fast the water spilled down his chin, soaking his blanket. 

“ ‘S it you, Em?” He attempted words again, grimacing at the rattling croak of his voice.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“ ‘M I… alive?”

“Thank God, yes,” Emma’s voice trembled with emotion. Summoning all his strength, he managed to open his eyes, staring at her face before him as if it was the face of an angel. She was more radiantly beautiful to him at that moment than she had ever been, in spite of her baggy green army fatigues and the white kerchief tied round her hair.

“Em… are you… crying?” he opened his eyes wider.

“No,” she sniffed, quickly wiping away a tear that was slowly sliding down her cheek. 

"Same… ole'... Emma…" he whispered, grinning. "Tough an'... hard… as… nails…" he tried to laugh, but gave up before he even began, twisting his face at the sudden fiery pain that shot across his body. He fell motionless as the pain coursed through him like a knife. He shifted sideways, experimentally, and bit his lip in a desperate attempt to muffle a cry of anguish as it flared up again, worse than ever.

"Shh… just lie still…" Emma bent over him, her eyes brimming over with sympathy and sorrow. "You'll be okay. I promise." As she spoke, she slipped a syringe from her pocket and pushed the needle into his arm. "This'll help the pain." Her hands were gentle as she brushed back the damp hair on his forehead. Suddenly, impulsively, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. For the first time in his life, Josh was completely speechless. This was a side of Emma he had never known existed. And she just kept on talking as if nothing was out of the ordinary. "Just lie still and try to get some rest. I need to change your bandages… I'll be as careful as I can, I promise. And then you need to eat."

The morphine worked wonders, dulling the fierce, raging pain to a vague and distant throbbing. Josh fixed his eyes on Emma's face, feeling the tension leave his body as the pain lessened. She worked quickly, efficiently, as she snipped away the bloody bandages. Angry red lines crisscrossed his chest and side, the bullet holes dark purple wounds. 

"It's a miracle you survived, y'know," she murmured as she unrolled a fresh package of clean bandages. 

"Thought I… was dead…"

"You practically were, by the time they brought you in. Four days without proper care." She shook her head. "I'm sorry… I shouldn't talk like this. You're going to be just fine. They'll be sending you to England as soon as they get an air field rigged up, and pretty soon you'll be good as new and… and…" her jaunty tone faltered and her lip quivered as she spoke the last words. "And turning cartwheels again…" 

Her eyes were distant now. She was seeing far beyond the dirty canvas tent with its rows of cots laden with bloody and mangled soldiers. Far past the long years of time that separated them from childhood. Back to the days when they had been carefree and happy.

"Don't… speak the word… cartwheel… to me…" Josh groaned at the mere thought of it. Emma only smiled sadly and shook her head as she finished securing his bandages. He suddenly wanted to tell her everything… to pour his heart out to her as he had so often in his letters. He reached out to grip her wrist, struggling to find the right words. 

"Emma… I… I found Him."

He couldn't manage any more. But she understood and she smiled.

"I know. And I'm so glad."

"You know…" he was surprised.

"I can see it in your face," she nodded. "It's a look of peace. Oh, Scout… if you only knew how hard I prayed…" she paused, tears threatening to fall again. "I'll be right back," she rose quickly and moved on down the aisle, threading her way through the rows of cots. He was almost happier to see her the second time than the first as she returned, fifteen minutes later, carrying a steaming bowl of soup. Now that the shock had worn off, he had decided that her being here was the best thing in all the world that could possibly have happened to him.

"Now I expect you to eat every last drop of this," she spoke sternly as she sank to her knees beside his cot and held the spoon to his lips. "You'll feel like a new man."

It was only watered down army ration tomato soup, but boy, was it good. Josh needed no urging. He already felt like a new man. But it wasn't because of the tomato soup. While the food fed his body, Emma's presence somehow fed his soul. In that moment, all the horrors of war seemed very far behind him. It was the moment that he realized he loved her.