Alex was running frantically from one bed to the next, stopping every few feet for men begging for help or pain relief, with bandaged eyes and burned bodies and faces, amputated limbs, and shrapnel-riddled bodies. The invasion had been a success, but the number of wounded was staggering. Alex hadn’t stopped for hours, when a tall man on a gurney with his legs hanging off reached out and grabbed her as she flew by, hurrying to a man farther down the hall who was begging for morphine. The man on the gurney had a craggy masculine face and a deep voice as he held fast to her arm.

“I’ll be back in one minute, I promise,” she said to him. “I’ve got to give that man a shot, he’s been waiting for hours.”

“You’re American,” he said with a smile and a look of surprise. “I thought everyone here was British.” He was American too.

“Not everyone.” She freed her arm from his firm grip, hurried to administer the morphine, and returned as promised a few minutes later.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. He had dark hair and warm brown eyes. His leg was broken and in a cast, and he had burns on his arms and shoulders.

“I’m a nurse.” She smiled at him, anxious to make the rounds to check on her patients. She had thirty assigned to her, several of them severely wounded and waiting for transfer back to the States, but they’d lost two hospital ships the month before. The men they were caring for were all U.S. Navy and marines.

“Why are you in England?” She could see he wanted to talk, and she didn’t have time. He looked desperately uncomfortable on the gurney that was too short for his long legs, with one of them broken, but he wasn’t complaining.

“I’m U.S. Army Air Forces, attached to an RAF Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron,” she told him. “And now I’m taking care of you brave men after your brief visit to Normandy.” She smiled at him again.

“Do you have a smoke?” he asked her, and she shook her head.

“Not on me. You’re not really supposed to smoke here in the halls. Fire hazard.”

“Do you suppose you can find me one, and wheel me somewhere where I can?” he asked with a look of mischief. There was something rough about him, but he wasn’t rude to her, and he wasn’t complaining about the pain he was in, which impressed her. She’d been dealing with crying men all night, and some screaming in agony. There was too little she could do for them with their extreme injuries, and some had terrible burns.