“I’m not in the mood to become a POW with the goddamn Jerries today, Reggie, so make it good. I want to be back at the pub tonight, not at a beer garden.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” the pilot said, expertly handling the big plane, and they touched down on another old, abandoned runway a few minutes later. Ed and Charlie threw open the doors and lowered the ladder as Pru and Lizzie watched, at the ready. Soldiers on the ground ran toward them and handed the litters up to them. Ed and Charlie both had powerful arms, and the copilot helped them, while Reggie stayed in his seat, ready for a fast takeoff. In less than ten minutes, they had all twenty-four patients strapped in, in their litters. Pru slammed the doors and locked them, ran to her seat in the front, and they took off again. Miraculously no one followed them. They could see the German battle line from the air, and Pru left her seat immediately after takeoff to check on the men. Ed filled her in quickly, standing in a little bay where they could talk.

“We’ve got two critical chest wounds, and a serious head wound. The head wound is unconscious, dosed on morphine at the field hospital. One of the chest wounds is having trouble breathing, it could be the altitude. We have a gangrenous leg and an amputated arm.” He went down the list, including severe burns and a soldier who had lost his eyes in an explosion. There was every possible kind of serious injury, and listening to them, Lizzie stepped into the exchange.

“What can I do? I’ll check the chest wounds if you like. I can sit with the one who’s having trouble breathing and keep an eye on him.”

“That would be a help,” Ed told her as Pru went to check the man with the gangrenous leg and the soldier with the amputated arm. The one with the leg needed an amputation too, but they hadn’t felt prepared to deal with his other complications at the field hospital, and wanted it done at the base.