Angel of the Somme: The Great War, Book 1 (8 page)

Somehow, impossibly, his blush deepened.

Lily rested a hand on his shoulder while Gordy yammered on with his River Shark Soliloquy. After giving him a moment to compose himself, she leaned down again to whisper in Sam’s ear. “It helps to think about very tedious things, or so they tell me. Perhaps you could do think about something especially dull?”

Sam bit his bottom lip. “Sunday morning church service, my uncle’s war stories, cleaning out the pig pen,” he muttered.

“That’s the spirit,” Lily said. “Now roll onto your back.” She gripped his hip and rolled him toward her. As she did so, he slipped a hand beneath the warming blanket to make a modest adjustment to his crotch region.

While he repositioned himself, she reapplied the soap to her improvised washing mitten. Then she moved to the foot of the bed, flipped the blanket up, and placed her hand inside, just touching the cloth to his hip.

With crisp efficiency, Lily moved down the length of his leg, until she reached his feet. When she brushed the cloth over the top of his toes, he squirmed in response. She froze.

Sam had sensitive feet?

She grinned widely, then prodded her washcloth cloth against his instep. Sam barked out a laugh.

“Captain Dwight, I do believe you’re ticklish.” Lily stared at his foot and she smiled.

Sam blinked warily at her. “Have mercy, Lily. I really don’t like that look on your face.”

“What look?” she asked.

“That smile. It’s not your usual one. This one is a little bit…well, evil.” He tried to tuck his legs up beneath the warming blanket, but Lily shook her head and grabbed his calves.

“No, no, no. I can’t neglect your feet, sir.”

“Not my feet,” was all he said.

“I’m only doing my duty. Trenchfoot is serious business.”

He clenched his jaw and extended his leg, staring at the ceiling like a man nearing his execution. She rubbed her thumbs across the top of his feet, then along his toes, watching him carefully. He arched his back, helpless to her. She knew he was only keeping himself from laughing with the thinnest thread of self control.

Lily rubbed her thumbs along his instep, causing his legs to jerk. When she increased the pressure, he wriggled in response.

She allowed her “evil” grin to widen. Her plan had worked perfectly.

“There. That’s done it,” she said, her voice triumphant.

“Done what?” he asked, giving her a puzzled glance.

“Taken your mind off other matters,” she said. Quick as a bolt of lightning, she reached up beneath the covers and began to wash his now only partially erect penis.

He stared at her, completely off guard.

She gave three swoops down his length, then the washcloth made a few quick passes over his scrotum. She was finished before his penis had quite had a chance to realize what she was doing and harden again.

“And we’re finished,” she said as she removed her hand from beneath the blanket and returned to her cart to fetch a fresh pair of bottoms. As she slipped them over his feet, he pointed an accusatory finger in her direction.

“You deployed a most clever diversionary tactic,” he said.

She smiled at him as she tied the drawstring around his waist.

“Oh, don’t give me that innocent smile. I’ve seen your evil grin now. I know what you’re about.” Sam shook his head.

Lily reached over to help him slip his arms into his top.

“Shrewd and unexpected,” he continued as she buttoned up his front. “You’d make a formidable general.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam.”

He laughed. “But at least at long last, I’ve got you calling me Sam again.”

She rolled her eyes and blushed prettily as she began buttoning his top. “Then it looks like you
win
after all. Captain.”

“Ladies?” a voice asked. Lily jumped, jerking his button forcefully.

Sister Newell had somehow managed to approach their corner of the ward with none of them being aware. “You’re spending an inordinate amount of time on these baths. Is there a problem?”

“Not at all, ma’am,” Lily replied.

“It’s my fault,” Rose offered.

“Miss Lewis?” Sister Newell asked.

“I’m new to this, Sister. Miss Curtis was instructing me and I’m afraid I’ve slowed down the pair of us.”

Sister Newell exhaled a puff of air. “Very well. Do try to pick up the pace, ladies. There are other patients waiting.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rose said.

Lily pulled the warming blanket from him and added it to her small stack of dirty linens. After tucking his covers around his hips, she gave him a very professional nod, under the watchful eye of the Sister, and moved out into the aisle.

A freshly scrubbed Gordy watched as Rose scrambled to pack up her cart. Lily had been so engrossed in Sam that she’d neglected the pair of them and she felt vaguely guilty. Neither of them looked the worse for it, however, deep blushes notwithstanding.

“And Gordy’s fresh as a…polar bear?” Lily asked, trying and failing to hit some kind of Canadian wildlife metaphor. “Well done, Rose.”

“Not exactly,” Rose whispered to Lily once she’d stepped over to her cart. “I’m afraid I wasn’t terribly thorough when it came to the lower extremities.” She glanced up to Lily and her expression changed from defeat to surprise. “But look at you, Lily. You look positively delighted, as if you’ve been out dancing.”

“Ah, nothing like the satisfaction of a job well done.” Lily winced inwardly at how much she sounded like the matron just then. But she was desperate to not call attention to her happiness at having spent so much time with Sam.

“Let’s just carry on then, shall we? We’ve got another ten baths to give out.” Lily turned her cart down the aisle, ever the professional.

At least, by outward appearances.

Chapter Eleven

Sam woke in the middle of the night to the sounds of the dying. The latest surge had brought another two dozen to the officers’ ward, Major Miller among them. He’d suffered a head injury that seemed quite similar to Sam’s own and they’d placed him a few beds away. The major had not fared well, however, and had died in what sounded like a great deal of pain sometime around four in the morning. Sister Cudahee had been with him when he passed.

Sam watched them in the dim light. The sister held Miller’s hand, wiping his brow while the poor man writhed in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets, crying out to God.

They’d wheeled the major away before daybreak crept through the windows of New Bedlam, but Sam couldn’t get back to sleep. A wire of guilt had begun to tighten around his conscience and left him too disturbed for slumber.

What if his seizures truly gave him the ability to ease these men’s suffering? If that were the case, wouldn’t that make Sam the worst kind of coward—to sit and do nothing while his countrymen died?

Certainly, there were compelling reasons to not chance another seizure. He knew he risked further brain injury each time. According to Lily, it could kill him. Assuming he should survive, Lily would still be terribly distressed by his actions. When he thought of hurting her, something twisted tightly inside his chest, another twist on the wire of guilt.

A memory stirred: in the barn with Baden and Evie—making a toast with Father’s tin cup on the eve of war. What had he said back then?
“To making a difference for good in the world.”
What a great, bloody fool he’d been. It had all seemed so simple at the time.

You could do something about this, Sam. You could trigger a seizure and ease their suffering, but you play it safe. Perhaps the real reason you won’t try is cowardice. Let others fight the war for you. Maybe if Lily knew the truth of it, she’d be as ashamed of you as you are of yourself.

He grimaced and lay back against his pillow. Just behind his eyes, a headache stirred to life. As he watched the sun slowly creep through the large windows along the southern wall, he knew what he had to do.

It was nearly seven when the VADs brought breakfast trays around. For once, Sam was relieved to find that Lily wasn’t on duty. Miss Frederick, one of the newer arrivals, delivered meals in their section of the ward instead.

Sam tested his hands, opening and closing his fists. He felt certain he was capable of handling utensils, but Miss Frederick had seen Lily feeding him and insisted on following suit. He didn’t argue, wanting very much to stay in her good graces. After he finished a final bite of toast, Sam took his chance. He only hoped she wouldn’t bother to check his chart for orders.

“Miss Curtis always hands me my mail following breakfast.” He did his best to make his voice sound authoritative. “It’s in a basket on the second shelf of my table, just there.”

She nodded, preoccupied with cleaning up his tray. “Certainly, sir.”

Miss Frederick scooped up the little basket and handed it to Sam. Such a simple gesture, really, but with potential for enormous repercussions.

She then turned to take Gordy’s tray.

“Good morning, sunshine.” Gordy beamed a grin at her.

“It’s Miss Frederick!” She tittered a nervous laugh.

With Gordy properly distracted, Sam wasted no time. He tore open the first envelope without bothering to see who it was from. He unfolded it and tried to focus on the letters. His baby headache matured and gave an adolescent kick of pain.

Dear Old Man,
Baden wrote. Sam forced his attention past the steadily increasing agony gathering behind his eyes.

So you’ve decided to stop napping at last. You know that once you’re back on the farm, Father will have you waking before the roosters. If I were you I would ‘make hay while the sun is shining’ because once you’re home, hay is about all you’ll be making.

Sam focused harder as pain howled around his head. The words swam on the page, the letters growing opaque.

We’ve been seeing a great bit of action here, but I can’t tell you where I am or the censors will go…

Something large and angry gave a snap inside Sam’s head. He watched his hand begin to jerk the paper back and forth, with a surreal detachment. Then his twitching fist crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it as though it was a grenade. A sea of red filled his vision and he felt balance shift and tilt as his body fell toward the floor. He braced for impact.

It never came.

He was instantly transported out of the hospital and into all too familiar earthen walls. Even before his vision returned, the stench of mud and blood and cordite filled his nose. His throat felt as if it had filled with dirt. He gagged and opened his eyes.

Sam lay on dirty duckboard in the bottom of an abandoned trench. He’d done it. He’d triggered another seizure and damn the consequences to hell.

His headache roared with a vengeance, his constant companion in these battlefield dreams.

Sam craned his neck, looking up and down the battered trench line, but there wasn’t a man to be seen. The crumbling sandbagged walls had clearly seen a fair share of shelling. The duckboard lining the floor had been reduced to muddy splinters.

Sam gripped a badly battered ladder and dragged his body up. Whatever skirmish had happened here was long past, and he was eager to get to his work.

The sun shone clear and bright, as if it were beaming down on a summer meadow and not the lifeless miles of blasted tree stumps and muddy shell holes. He could even hear a lark singing, though he couldn’t imagine where the poor bird might perch or what reason he might have to burst into song.

When he swung his head around, he saw a familiar sight and knew where he was in an instant. A red brick basilica towered above the artillery-blasted landscape and could have been seen from ten miles distant. Like everything else along the front, the church had been shelled mercilessly. Its crowning glory had once been a golden Virgin lifting her child to the heavens. With the tower nearly demolished, she now leaned out over the square at a ninety degree angle, giving her the appearance of hurling her child to the earth. A fitting image for humanity in wartime.

The Leaning Virgin of Albert was a famous landmark all along the English lines, and considered a kind of mascot for the Tommies. The lads said that as long as she remained, England would hold out.

She was far too distant from Sam to be of much use, however. Sam looked around for some kind of cover, but the blasted wasteland of mortar holes and rubble offered nothing.

“Please,” a voice rasped.

Sam’s headache shrieked as he spun around to see who had spoken. He only saw collapsed trenches.

“Mercy,” the voice said, just above a whisper. Tucked beside a ruined trench wall, a muddy face peered out. Sam scrambled toward the soldier, tumbling through the muck.

Sam halted before he reached the lad, as soon as he saw the extent of his injuries. The boy’s uniform was matted with blood. He’d been bayoneted—a cruel and jagged path led from his abdomen to his sternum. A mortal wound if Sam had ever seen one. Somehow, impossibly, the soldier still lived. Sam couldn’t imagine how long the lad had been like this, waiting in pain. Or how much longer the poor boy could last.

“What’s your name, lad?” Sam asked.

“Buchanan, sir.” His voice was just above a whisper.

“It’s going to be all right, Private Buchanan. I’m here to help you.” Sam knelt by his side.

The boy reached out a hand. It was so pale from blood loss that it seemed to glow.

Previously, whenever Sam had delivered his healing touch, he’d been the one to reach out. This boy, despite his weakened condition, took charge instead. He clasped Sam’s hand in an icy grip.

“Thank you,” Buchanan said on a sigh.

Bright light travelled down Sam’s arm in an explosion of heat. The light bloomed inside his mind, obliterating his headache completely.

White exploded into black.

And Sam knew no more.

“He’s not breathing,” a panicked voice shouted.

Though Sam’s world was dark, he could make out frantic female voices. A small but firm hand gripped the back of his neck, pulling him forward. He felt his jaw being tugged downwards and the steady pressure of a mouth, warm and insistent upon his own. Sam fought for breath, but when he tried to take a gulp of air, something prevented him. Someone.

She forced a whoosh of air down his throat instead. Sam coughed and sputtered.

He forced his lids open to see Lily’s green eyes staring back at him, wide and frightened.

“Sam…Captain. You’re awake?”

He tried to respond with a “yes”, but his throat was strangely constricted. The only sound that escaped was a strangled kind of groan.

“Miss Frederick, what’s his heart rate?” Lily looked across the bed where the other VAD was gripping Sam’s wrist.

The young girl’s lips thinned in concentration. “One forty now.”

Lily nodded. “Please inform Dr. Raye, would you? He may wish to change the medication dosage.” Lily glanced down at Sam, her expression so foreign that it took a moment for Sam to register that it was…anger. “And ask if I could please speak to him at his earliest convenience.”

Sam closed his eyes and let the darkness carry him away.