A Question of Honor by Charles Todd

healed.
    Whatever had happened, I was just as glad not to have to keep an eye out for the chaplain. Breakdowns like his could turn violent. Most particularly, my father’s regiment was serving here in France, and whispers made the rounds far too quickly. . . .
    We spent part of the next three hours working with wounded German prisoners.
    They were not as cocky as they had been two years ago, when the war seemed to be going their way. Tired, dispirited, short on reinforcements, they fought with the same fierce tenacity, but I could see in their dark-ringed eyes how much it had cost.
    One, a young private who couldn’t have been more than seventeen, slept nearly around the clock. The Lieutenant in charge of the prisoners looked in on him once or twice, but let him rest.
    I happened by as the Lieutenant said to another Sister, “I’ve a brother about that age. Eager to fight, threatening to enlist, worrying my poor mother to the point of exhaustion. I just hope this damned war is over before he is eighteen.”
    “When is his birthday?” Sister Milton asked.
    “November. Twenty-six November.”
    She shook her head. “I doubt we’ll see it ended by Christmas. Whatever the Yanks are saying.”
    “Pray God you’re wrong,” the Lieutenant replied and went to look in on the more seriously wounded men. When the last of those was stable enough to be sent back for processing as prisoners, they were put into ambulances and lorries, with those able to walk bringing up the rear and often getting ahead of the vehicles lumbering through ruts and sliding toward holes. I found myself thinking they were well out of it, and would live to see the end of the war.
    And what about our own men? More than one friend from before the war had been taken prisoner.
    The shelling began again, and we were hard-pressed to keep up with the influx of wounded.
    The attack that followed the shelling pushed the Germans back behind their own lines, and I was working with our only doctor, trying to stop bleeding in a leg wound.
    An orderly came up on the run, breathless and covered in blood. “Sir? There’s a Lieutenant down in one of the German trenches. We’re not sure how long we can hold that sector, sir. He needs to be taken out as soon as may be.”
    “I’m needed here, can’t you see that?” Dr. Reid snapped, his eyes on the leg he was trying to save. And then, satisfied that the bleeding was slowing down, he looked up. “Sister?” he said to me. “Are you game to go find a rat down a hole?”
    “In the German trench, sir?” I asked, surprised. We’d never sent a Sister into the German lines. I thought briefly about Simon, who had been behind those very lines.
    “Indeed.”
    “What should I take?” I asked the orderly.
    “It’s his arm and shoulder. Pinned under one of the bulwarks that hold up the trench walls. He was going down to be sure we’d routed all of them.” He hesitated. “We might have to take that arm off. Morphine for the pain, something to brace that shoulder, sticks for wrapping the arm . . .”
    He was still making the list as I led him to where we kept what stores we had. We made a quick survey, chose only what was necessary, and set out.
    I’d been caught close to the lines before when the sectors lost ground. I’d almost been overrun by German forces a time or two. The orderly had insisted that I remove my cap and cover my hair with the cleanest helmet he could find. I had visions of lice in my hair and down my back as he pulled an officer’s abandoned greatcoat over my uniform.
    “It’s for the best,” he said as we hurried on. He was carrying the bundle in one hand and helping me over the rough, uneven ground toward the nearest trench on our side of the wire.
    It was the most appalling sight. Mud, thick with unspeakable, mercifully unidentifiable bits and pieces. I thought I saw a boot with part of a foot still inside, and the body of a dead rat in a puddle of what smelled suspiciously like fresh