Read Chapter 15: The New Nurse

The mud had barely dried on their boots when the shout came from the sentry post.

“Walker coming up the road! Woman, by the look of her—VAD uniform.”

Élise set down the roll of bandages she had been sterilizing and stepped out of the surgical tent, shielding her eyes against the pale February light. The ground squelched beneath her boots, still soft from the morning thaw. Beside her, James emerged, his left arm bound in a clean sling, his face tight with the particular irritation of a surgeon forced into convalescence.

The woman approaching was small-boned and precise in her movements, picking her way around the worst of the mud with the fastidious care of someone who had never before seen a battlefield. Her uniform was immaculate, creases sharp as knife blades, and her blonde hair was pinned beneath her cap in perfect coils. She carried a single leather valise and walked as though the weight of it were a privilege.

“Prudence Whitcombe,” she said, extending a gloved hand to James before he could speak. “London. I’m your new VAD nurse. The Committee sent me from the base hospital at Abbeville. I’m afraid I’m rather late—the trains have been dreadful.”

James took her hand briefly, his eyes flicking to Élise with something that might have been amusement. “We’re grateful for any pair of hands, Miss Whitcombe. This is Nurse Moreau. She runs the ward when I’m otherwise occupied.”

Prudence turned to Élise, and her smile was wide and earnest, the kind of smile that expected warmth in return. “How wonderful. I’ve heard so much about the work you’ve done here. The bravery of the French nurses has been the talk of the Committee.”

Élise returned a smile that did not reach her eyes. “Welcome.”

The word came out flatter than she intended. She saw James’s brow lift a fraction, but he said nothing, merely gestured toward the supply tent.

“We’ll get you settled. Élise, would you show Miss Whitcombe where to store her things? I need to check on Corporal Higgins’s dressing before rounds.”

He left them alone. Prudence watched him go with an expression Élise recognized all too well—the softening of the eyes, the unconscious tilt of the head. It was the look of a woman already half in love with a man who had not yet noticed her.

Élise picked up the valise with more force than necessary and led the way to the nurses’ tent.

---

The first days were difficult.

Prudence was competent—Élise would give her that. She had trained at St. Bartholomew’s, had spent six months at a base hospital in Boulogne, and knew her way around a dressing trolley better than most of the orderlies who had drifted through the unit. But she had never worked this close to the front, and it showed in the small things: the way she flinched at distant artillery fire, the moment of hesitation before she entered the surgical tent, the way she held her breath when the worst cases came in.

Worse, she followed James like a devoted shadow.

“Dr. Whitmore, should I reprepare the instruments?”

“Dr. Whitmore, I’ve cleaned the wound on Private Ellis—would you check it?”

“Dr. Whitmore, I found some spare sulfa powder in my kit. I thought you might use it.”

Élise stood at the far end of the ward, wringing out a cloth in a bowl of water that was already pink with blood, and watched James receive each of Prudence’s offerings with the same bland courtesy he gave everyone. He did not seem to notice the flush that crept up the English girl’s neck when he thanked her. He did not notice the way she positioned herself near his elbow during every procedure, or the extra slice of bread she saved for him at meals.

But Élise noticed.

She noticed because she had been that woman once, before the war had stripped away her illusions. Before she had learned that James Whitmore’s courtesy was a wall, not a door.

On the third evening, Prudence found Élise alone in the supply tent, inventorying the dwindling stock of morphine.

“May I sit?” she asked, gesturing to an overturned crate.

Élise nodded without looking up.

Prudence settled herself with the same prim care she did everything, folding her hands in her lap. “I wanted to thank you,” she said. “For being so patient with me. I know I’m still learning the rhythm of a forward post.”

“You’re learning quickly,” Élise said. It was true, and she hated that it was.

“Dr. Whitmore is a remarkable teacher.”

Élise’s hand paused over the ledger. “He is.”

“I’d heard he was good, of course, but seeing him work—the way he stays calm when everything is chaos, the way he cares for each patient as though they were his own family—” Prudence shook her head, a small, wondering smile on her lips. “It’s no wonder the stories spread. He’s the kind of man who makes you believe in something better.”

Élise set down her pen. “Miss Whitcombe.”

“Please. Prudence.”

“Prudence.” The name felt foreign on Élise’s tongue. “Dr. Whitmore is a fine surgeon and a good man. But you would do well to remember that we are at war. There is no room here for—for romantic fancies.”

Prudence’s cheeks flamed. She looked down at her hands, and when she spoke, her voice was smaller. “I know. I didn’t mean to imply—I have a fiancé, actually. Back home. Well, not back home. He’s here. In France.”

Élise paused. “Your fiancé is serving?”

“He was.” Prudence’s voice cracked. She reached into the collar of her blouse and withdrew a thin chain, at the end of which hung a small silver ring. “He gave this to me before he shipped over. We were supposed to marry in June. He wrote that he would try to arrange leave, but then—the casualty lists started coming in, and I stopped hearing from him. I wrote to his commanding officer, but there was only silence.”

Élise felt something cold settle in her stomach. “His name?”

“Lieutenant Charles Ashworth. Third Battalion, King’s Own Rifles.” Prudence looked up, and her eyes were wet. “He was at Saint-Rémy. The first push, before they moved the hospital.”

The cold deepened. Élise’s hand drifted instinctively to the pocket of her apron, where she kept the small tin that held the locket—the locket taken from a dead British soldier, handed to her in a trench by a man whose name she never learned.

“Charles,” she repeated. “What did he look like?”

Prudence blinked. “Tall. Fair-haired. He had a habit of humming when he was nervous. And he carried a photograph of me in his breast pocket, next to a locket his mother had given him.”

Élise withdrew the tin. Her fingers trembled as she opened it and lifted the locket out—a silver oval on a broken chain, the surface worn smooth, and inside, a photograph of a young woman with neat blonde hair and a gentle smile.

The photograph of Prudence.

“Oh,” Prudence said, very softly. “Oh, you found—God. You found him.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. Élise watched the tears spill over, watched grief crack the careful composure the girl had worn since she arrived.

“I’m so sorry,” Élise whispered. She set the locket on Prudence’s palm, watching her close her fingers around it as though it were the most precious thing in the world. “He was—he was already gone when I found him. He didn’t suffer.”

It was a lie. She remembered the broken chest, the blood that had pooled black in the trench. But even a lie could be a kindness, and Prudence Whitcombe deserved a kindness.

Prudence nodded, pressing the locket to her lips. “I wanted to come find him,” she said, her voice muffled. “But I couldn’t bear to ask. I thought if I came here—if I saw where he had been—perhaps I could say goodbye properly.”

Élise said nothing. She sat beside the English girl in the flickering lamplight, the inventory forgotten, and let her cry.

---

When James found them an hour later, Prudence was asleep on the crate, her cheek pressed against the rough wood, the locket clutched to her chest. Élise was still on the floor, her back against a stack of bandages, staring at nothing.

He crouched beside her. “Élise?”

“I gave it to her,” she said. “The locket. It was her fiancé.”

James’s face did not change, but something moved behind his eyes. He reached out, his good hand finding hers, and his touch was warm and solid and certain.

“You carry too much,” he said quietly. “You carry grief that isn’t yours. You carry guilt for the dead. You carry all of us, every day, and you never let anyone carry you.”

“I have you,” she said.

He smiled, a rare, unguarded smile that made her chest ache. “Yes. You have me.”

Outside, the distant thunder of guns rolled across the plain. Inside, the lamp sputtered and burned, and Élise let herself lean into the warmth of his hand, the steady beat of his heart beneath his coat.

For a moment, the war felt very far away.