The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,94

moisture filled her eyes. “Oh, Lord. I’ve been searching for the family I lost, and I didn’t see the family you gave me.”

42

POINTE DU HOC

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 1944

The pain—it hurt to breathe.

Another explosion, lower and deeper. It jostled Clay, and he cried out.

Sharp retorts in the casemate. Rifle fire?

“Position secure!” Perkovich called.

His buddies had taken it, just as in his dream, and Clay’s smile dug into the dirt.

“Casualties?” Taylor yelled.

“One dead Jerry, two injured. No Rangers hurt.”

“Paxton is!” Gene shouted. “Pax is down. Medic!”

“Don’t—bother,” Clay mumbled.

Footsteps pounded his way, and someone rolled him onto his back.

Pain carved into Clay’s chest, and he groaned.

“He’s alive!” Ruby grasped his shoulders. “Come on, Clay. Stay with me. Tell me what to do. You paid attention in first aid class, remember?”

“Let me go.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Don’t talk that way.” Ruby ripped open Clay’s field jacket. “Tell me what to do.”

“Come on, Clay. Don’t give up.” Gene hobbled over, using his rifle as a crutch.

He had to give his buddies a task so they’d feel better. Clay lifted his head enough to see his chest. So much blood. “Check—check to see if the bullet went through.”

“Sorry, pal.” Ruby pushed on Clay’s shoulder and hip.

It hurt like blazes, and Clay bit his lip so he wouldn’t scream.

“Yeah, another hole in your back and bigger.”

“Pack ’em with field dressings. Sit me upright.” His breath was fast, shallow, painful.

More footsteps. Lieutenant Taylor knelt in front of him, and so did Pete Voinescu, a medic.

“Clay said to put on field dressings, sit him upright.” Gene clenched Clay’s shoulder.

“That’s right.” Pete opened his bag.

So much activity. Ruby eased Clay up to sitting and supported him. Someone tore off Clay’s shirt. Packets were ripped open. Dressings pressed to his chest. Nothing—nothing had hurt worse in his life.

“My—Bible.” Clay reached for his discarded shirt. “G. M.?”

“Sure, buddy.” Gene dug into the pocket and pressed the Bible into Clay’s hand.

With effort, Clay shoved it into a trouser pocket.

A sharp pinch in his thigh. Morphine to ease the pain and prevent shock. “Only—a quarter grain. I need—to be able to cough.”

Pete’s blond eyebrows arched up and under his helmet. More information than in the first aid manual, but what did it matter?

“Let’s get him to Doc Block. Ruby, get between his knees, grab one leg under each arm.” Pete came behind Clay and reached under Clay’s armpits. “This’ll hurt, Pax. Stay with me.”

He lifted. Clay stifled a cry and more cries when the men ran across the pockmarked land. Why hadn’t they just let him bleed out? It would’ve hurt a lot less.

Finally they went down steep steps into a dark concrete bunker, reeking of sweat and blood.

A flashlight shone at him.

“Corporal Paxton, shot through the chest,” Pete said. “Bullet went through. Gave him a quarter grain of morphine. He said not to give him the entire half grain.”

“Set him here,” Dr. Walter Block said.

Pete and Ruby sat Clay on a litter, and he leaned back against the concrete, dank and cold against his bare skin.

Doc Block examined the field dressings. “Well, Paxton. What treatment options would you recommend?”

Dozens of wounded men filled the bunker. “Let me go. Help the others.”

“Can’t hear you, young man.” He eased Clay forward to examine his back.

A dagger of pain, and he cried out. “Did you—hear that?”

The physician smiled. “Loud and clear. Now, tell me how to treat you.”

“Dressings with petrolatum in case they’re sucking wounds.” Clay forced a deep breath. “Keep me upright or on my right side to prevent hemothorax. Get me coughing to clear secretions. Plasma if I show signs of shock.”

“Do you?”

Sweat tingled on his cold face, and his respiratory rate and pulse were high. “Yes.”

“Where should I place the line?”

Clay pointed to the inside of his elbow.

“Oh, so close to a perfect score. No, I’ll put it in your ankle, then it won’t be in the way when you go into surgery.”

“Surgery?” The battalion had no surgical equipment.

“When we evacuate you.” His voice sounded tight. “Now, cough. The morphine should be kicking in.”

Clay pulled in a long, fiery breath, and he coughed it out. “Dying—dying would’ve hurt less.”

“Yes, it would have.” Something in the physician’s tone told Clay dying was still an option.

He leaned back against the rough concrete. Why had he twisted away from that bullet? If he’d let it hit square in the heart, he’d already be with Jesus. No pain ever again. The half made whole.

Instead, he’d let love pull him toward life—more likely, to a painful, protracted