Drawing Blood by C.D. Breadner Page A

Hauptmann Bossong took her by the elbow, shining a torch in her face. She winced at the bright light. Who had taken the candle away from her?
    “Abigail, please. Help him. Er ist mein bruder. ”
    She didn’t need to be told. The man now being laid out on her kitchen table was the mirror image of the captain, if not younger-looking. Something was wrong with his arm. His jacket sleeve was torn and dark stains were wicking their way from his elbow to his shoulder.
    “What happened?” She stepped forward, leaning over where the wound must have been.
    “ Eine explosion. He was caught by shrapnel.”
    “Take off his jacket. I need to see what’s happened.”
    She went to a cupboard where she knew she’d find scissors. There were enough torches flashing light all over she was able to see them immediately. By the time she got back they’d rolled him to one side and were carefully easing the sleeve off his arm. It wasn’t working – he was screaming “ Nein—hör auf! Nein! ”
    “Okay, wait. We’ll cut his coat off.”
    They lowered him to his back again, and Abigail set to snipping away at the sleeve at the shoulder. A pity the fabric was of such good quality – it was very hard to cut with dulling scissors. But she got them all the way around, and one of the soldiers lifted his shoulder slightly so she could pull the fabric away. Abigail did it as gently as she could but the boy still yelled and cursed in between bouts of “ Das tut weh! ”
    She knew it was hurting him. Let him yowl if it helped.
    As he was rolled on to his back a second time the arm flopped to the side, which mercifully hurt so much the boy passed out.
    “Friedrich!” The captain was as close to emotional as she’d ever seen a German get. “Friedrich, wake up!”
    “Let him rest,” she instructed, prodding the torn mass of flesh in the arm. “If he keeps moving around and screaming we might make this worse.”
    She couldn’t imagine worse, though. His skin was ripped apart in ribbons, likely done by multiple pieces of flying metal. The muscle and skin were all the same colour. She couldn’t even begin to stitch this closed. But she could stop the bleeding.
    “All I can do is tie his arm off in a tourniquet. It’ll ensure he doesn’t bleed to death before you get him to a hospital.”
    The captain nodded jerkily. He wasn’t made of stone; he genuinely had concern for his brother. Abigail felt a pang of sympathy, but she didn’t let it linger or else it could become a habit. She got one of the solders to remove his belt as she got a bottle of Russian vodka out of the cabinet. It was from the captain – if he was pleased that she kept it he didn’t show it.
    She poured vodka over the bloody mess to clean it, but that was the most she could do. She had sulfanilamide and morphine downstairs, but that was going to stay her secret. She sure wasn’t going to produce army-issue first aid supplies from her root cellar.
    She tightened the belt enough to staunch the blood loss, maybe a little tighter  than she would in a hospital. She doubted it would get too infected during the half-hour drive to Calais. The boy likely would have been fine without her help, but the captain had panicked and brought his brother to her first. Again, sympathy. Abigail pushed it aside.
    The soldiers carried their unconscious genosse from her house a lot more quietly than they’d entered. She stayed by the kitchen table, staring down at the blood on the wooden top. She moved to the sink to wet a cloth to start cleaning, and when she returned she realized the captain hadn’t left yet. He had his flashlight playing over the table. The only other light came from her candlestick set on the counter. So that’s where it went.
    “Hauptmann Bossong,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “are you all right?”
    She startled him, and he turned wide and confused eyes on her. “I couldn’t see how bad it was. All I could see was the all the blood. I was so