Dear God, if she only could bungle them! If only they had not wrenched from her this torturing, ghastly choice! She knew the meaning now of the strangeness that had met her as she first crossed the threshold of the little church. She knew why the chorus of mothers had been sung so deep into her heart. The greatest moment of her life had come—a terrible, soul-rending moment. And beyond it lay nothing. She choked out an incoherent, futile prayer into the dulled ears—and left him. This—this was her farewell to Peter Brooks—her man—her man for all time.
The American orderly had disappeared. Sheila stumbled over to the door and gripped the sleeve of the German.
“If he opens his eyes”—she opened and shut her own eyes in pantomime—“come for me, quick. Verstehen?”
The German nodded.
For the next half-hour, with nerves keyed to their utmost and hands working with the greatest speed and skill they were capable of, Sheila O’Leary’s soul went down into purgatory and stayed there. Not once did she look beyond the boy she was helping to save; not once did she let herself think what might be happening beyond the circle of light that hemmed them in. With all the woman courage she could muster, she was stifling every breath of love or longing—or self-pity. If she could have killed her body and known that when that night’s work was done she would be laid in the cemetery outside with Peter, she would have been almost satisfied.
Suddenly she realized they had finished. The chief was repeating something over and over again.
“The boy is safe. You’d better lie down.”
The bearers were moving the boy back to the pews and the chief was leading her down the steps of the chancel. But it was Sheila who guided their steps at the bottom. She led the way toward the German and the thing he had been asked to watch. Terror shook her. It seemed as if she could never look at what she knew would be waiting for her, and yet no power on earth could have held her back.
As she reached the prisoner she saw in bewilderment a strange scattering of things on the floor about him—forceps, some knives, a roll of gauze, and a syringe. There was an odor of a strange antiseptic which made her faint. She tottered and would have fallen had the German not helped the chief to steady her.
“He has not gained consciousness, madam. He has lost too much blood for that.” The German spoke in English. He also spread his hands in mute apology for what he had done. “I have stanched his wounds with what poor supplies I had with me. It has merely kept him alive. He will require more care, better dressing.”