Blood Alone Read Online Free PDF Page B

four wounded from the aid station and brought them down to the field hospital. I had wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, but it didn’t seem right to steal a jeep just for myself. It was good cover, I’d figured. No one would stop and question me with four bleeding men crowded in the jeep.
    “Not infected, thank goodness,” she said, pulling off the once-white bandages, stained with blood, dirt, and sweat. She was dressed in army fatigues about five sizes too big for her, sleeves and pants rolled up to fit. Wisps of brown hair stuck out from beneath her helmet.
    “I didn’t know there were nurses here already,” I said as she put a new dressing on my head. I was still sitting in the jeep. I had been ready to take off as soon as they got the casualties out, but she refused to let me go until she had checked my head wound.
    “We landed this morning. They sent us up from the Evac Hospital to help out. We would’ve gotten here sooner but we ran into German tanks. We hid and watched them go by. That’s as close as I ever want to get to those things,” she said, shuddering, her shoulders bunching up.
    “Yeah, you and me both.”
    A few tanks had broken through, but they were stopped short of the beachhead. I had passed two of them knocked out by the side of the road, black greasy smoke curling up out of their hatches. Plenty of our vehicles had been destroyed too, and dead bodies bloated in the heat amid twisted steel. The smell of smoke, death, and decay left a metallic taste in my mouth I could not quite shake.
    There was more of everything coming ashore now, and long tents had sprouted everywhere since I’d been here last, more targets for the German planes buzzing overhead. They concentrated on the ships and landing craft, but every now and then a low roar of engines flared across the horizon, followed by a string of explosions. Something was burning not too far off, sharp crackles sending showers of sparks into the evening air.
    “There you go, darlin’, just get those bandages changed in a day or so. You can head back to your unit. You take care now.”
    “Thanks,” I said, and gave her a grin. “Thanks a lot.”
    There was something comforting about being taken care of by a woman with a soft, sweet voice and a gentle touch. I hated to see her go. She smiled back, disappearing into the tent filled with the cries and groans of the wounded. That lingering smile left me feeling more alone than I had since I’d woken up this morning. I sat for a minute, wishing everything would come back to me—the people I knew and cared about, my own name, some clue as to who I was. And why I was here. But nothing came, and all I had was the thinnest of all possible human connections. A nice nurse doing her job. A smile. Take care.
    I held onto the steering wheel and rested my head on it. I could’ve stayed like that all night. I could have cried me a river. I could’ve asked her name. I could’ve done all those things, but I knew I had to move out before someone else started asking questions.
    I raised my head in time to see two MPs emerge from another hospital tent across the road. One held a clipboard, the other a carbine. A hand waved and I looked in the direction the MPs faced. Down the road, two officers walked out of another tent. One American and one British. The American pointed to the other hospital tents on my side of the road. They seemed to be looking for someone. Maybe me. Probably me. I thought about giving myself up to them, but then wondered why the American military police and the Brits would both be out hunting for me. I decided I better find out more about what kind of trouble I was in first. I didn’t have a clue as to what I might have done to deserve such attention, but I didn’t want to find out from these guys. For all I knew, they might use the carbine before the clipboard. I grabbed a field jacket from the back of the jeep, tilted my helmet down over my eyes and hoped the bandage