Pru’s and Emma’s last flights came in right behind each other that night. They’d been flying missions for fourteen hours, and were both more tired than they were willing to admit. Ground crews got the wounded to where the transports could land, and the planes either came back for another load of wounded or moved on to another destination. It was a continuing process. They had changed pilots once several hours before, but the medical crew remained the same until their day’s work was done. Lifting the litters and sometimes carrying the men, moving them, dealing with their severe injuries was backbreaking work and emotionally draining. Whenever possible, they talked to the wounded to reassure them and keep them alive. Some were unconscious, or heavily drugged, but many were awake, frightened, and in pain. It required constant concentration and rapid decisions that could cost or save their lives. There were no hard-and-fast rules. Pru and her crew, and the others, were willing to try anything to save the boys.

When they went into particularly dangerous areas, they were assigned fighter planes to go with them and protect them. But often they flew alone. They were a legitimate target for the enemy since the C-47s bore no red cross to indicate their medical mission. Since they carried both cargo and men, they were fair game for the enemy. There were no polite rules in this war, no gentlemen’s agreements or humanity or compassion. Hitler’s armies and his allies had one primary goal: to destroy them and in addition, to sink morale.

When they left the airstrip after a halfway decent day, Pru walked along next to Emma with a tired smile. Neither of them had lost a patient, so far, which made it a successful day for them. It was all they cared about.

Ed had manually held an eighteen-year-old soldier’s entrails in place for one of their flights that day and saved his life, while talking to him about Ireland when he was a boy, just to keep the soldier’s mind on something else. The ambulance drivers and medics took over once they landed back at Down Ampney, their home base. With the last man off both their flights, Emma and Pru were free for the night, until the next day when it would all begin again. They had to have tremendous fortitude to face it every day, but that was what they were here for. And neither of them, nor their fellow flight nurses, would have wanted any other job. This was why they had enlisted, not to sit at a desk or walk down a hospital corridor. They had come for the rough work, and there was plenty of it.