A man in an officer’s uniform ran past her, then stopped. “What’s she doing here? This is a war zone, not a place for nurses. You’ll be no help to us dead, girl. At least make yourself useful. We need the casualties loaded up.”
He stormed off before Luce could respond. Below her, the boy’s eyes were beginning to droop and his whole body was shaking. She looked around desperately for help.
About a half mile away was a narrow dirt road with two ancient-looking trucks and two small, squat ambulances parked at its side.
“I’ll be right back,” Luce told the boy, pressing his hands more firmly against his stomach to control the bleeding. He whimpered when she pulled away.
She ran toward the trucks, stumbling over her feet when another shell came down behind her, making the earth buck.
A cluster of women in white uniforms stood gathered around the back of one of the trucks. Nurses. They would know what to do, how to help. But when Luce got close enough to see their faces, her heart sank. They were girls. Some of them couldn’t have been older than fourteen. Their uniforms looked like costumes.
She scanned their faces, looking for herself in one of them. There must have been a reason why she’d stepped into this Hell. But no one looked familiar. It was hard to fathom the girls’ calm, clear expressions. Not one of them showed the terror that Luce knew was clear on her own face. Maybe they had already seen enough of the war to grow used to what it did.
“Water.” An older woman’s voice came from inside the truck. “Bandages. Gauze.”
She was distributing supplies to the girls, who loaded up, then set to work putting together a makeshift clinic on the side of the road. A row of injured men had already been moved behind the truck for treatment. More were on the way. Luce joined the line for supplies. It was dark and no one said a word to her. She could feel it now—the stress of the young nurses. They must have been trained to keep a poised, calm façade for the soldiers, but when the girl in front of Luce reached up to take her ration of supplies, her hands were shaking.
Around them, soldiers moved quickly in pairs, carrying the wounded under the arms and by the feet. Some of the men being carried mumbled questions about the battle, asking how badly they’d been hit. Then there were the ones more seriously injured, whose lips could form no questions because they were too busy biting off screams, who had to be hoisted by the waist because one or both of their legs had been blown off by a land mine.
“Water.” A jug landed in Luce’s arms. “Bandages. Gauze.” The head nurse dumped the ration of supplies mechanically, ready to move on to the next girl, but then she didn’t. She fixed her gaze on Luce. Her eyes traveled downward, and Luce realized she was still wearing the heavy wool coat from Luschka’s grandmother in Moscow. Which was a good thing, because underneath the coat were her jeans and button-down shirt from her current life.
“Uniform,” the woman finally said in the same monotone, tossing down a white dress and a nurse’s cap like the other girls were wearing.
Luce nodded gratefully, then ducked behind a truck to change. It was a billowing white gown that reached her ankles and smelled strongly of bleach. She tried to wipe the soldier’s blood off her hands, using the wool coat, then tossed it behind a tree. But by the time she’d buttoned the nurse’s uniform, rolled up the sleeves, and tied the belt around her waist, it was completely covered with rusty red streaks.
She grabbed the supplies and ran back across the road. The scene before her was gruesome. The officer hadn’t been lying. There were at least a hundred men who needed help. She looked at the bandages in her arms and wondered what it was she should be doing.
“Nurse!” a man called out. He was sliding a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. “Nurse! This one needs a nurse.”
Luce realized that he was talking to her. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Me?” She peered into the ambulance. It was cramped and dark inside. A space that looked like it had been made for two people now held six. The wounded soldiers were laid out on stretchers slid into three-tiered slings on either side. There was no place for Luce except on the floor.
Someone was shoving her to the side: a man, sliding another stretcher onto the small empty space on the floor. The soldier laid out on it was unconscious, his black hair plastered across his face.
“Go on,” the soldier said to Luce. “It’s leaving now.”
When she didn’t move, he pointed to a wooden stool affixed to the inside of the ambulance’s back door with a crisscrossed rope. He bent down and made a stirrup with his hands to help Luce up onto the stool. Another shell shook the ground, and Luce couldn’t hold back the scream that escaped her lips.
She glanced apologetically at the soldier, took a deep breath, and hopped up.
When she was seated on the tiny stool, he handed up the jug of water and the box of gauze and bandages. He started to shut the door.
“Wait,” Luce whispered. “What do I do?”
The man paused. “You know how long the ride to Milan is. Dress their wounds and keep them comfortable. Do the best you can.”
The door slammed with Luce on it. She had to grip the stool to keep from falling off and landing on the soldier at her feet. The ambulance was stifling hot. It smelled terrible. The only light came from a small lantern hanging from a nail in the corner. The only window was directly behind her head on the inside of the door. She didn’t know what had happened to Giovanni, the boy with the bullet in his stomach. Whether she’d ever see him again. Whether he’d live through the night.
The engine started up. The ambulance shifted into gear and lurched forward. The soldier on one of the top slings began to moan.
After they’d reached a steady speed, Luce heard the pattering sound of a leak. Something was dripping. She leaned forward on the stool, squinting in the dim lantern light.
It was the blood of the soldier on the top bunk dripping through the woven sling onto the soldier in the middle bunk. The middle soldier’s eyes were open. He was watching the blood fall on his chest, but he was injured so badly that he couldn’t move away. He didn’t make a sound. Not until the trickle of blood turned into a stream.
Luce whimpered along with the soldier. She started to rise from her stool, but there was no place for her to stand unless she straddled the soldier on the floor. Carefully, she wedged her feet around his chest. As the ambulance shuddered along the bumpy dirt road, she gripped the taut canvas of the top sling and held a fistful of gauze against its bottom. The blood soaked through onto her fingers within seconds.
“Help!” she called to the ambulance driver. She didn’t know if he’d even be able to hear her.
“What is it?” The driver had a thick regional accent.
“This man back here—he’s hemorrhaging. I think he’s dying.”
“We’re all dying, gorgeous,” the driver said. Really, he was flirting with her now? A second later, he turned around, glancing at her through the opening behind the driver’s seat. “Look, I’m sorry. But there’s nothing to do. I’ve gotta get the rest of these guys to the hospital.”
He was right. It was already too late. When Luce took her hand away from under the stretcher, the blood began to gush again. So heavily it didn’t seem possible.