Nightingale by Susan May Warren Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes…
    Took a breath.
    Opened them.
    â€œYou might not have, but you did. And if Linus is dead—” Her breath caught, her hand behind it. But her jaw tightened, her voice lethally quiet. “I promise to make you pay for what you stole from me.”

CHAPTER 4

    June 1945
    Ripon, Wisconsin
    Dear Miss Lange,
    It was with great horror that I read of your confusion over your friend’s passing. I cannot believe the gross neglect of the United States military, and I deeply apologize for the crudeness of the information I conveyed. I know it could only have caused deeper pain as your confusion increased.
    As to a direct answer to your question. No. I did not see your friend Linus pass from this life to the next. I do know that by the time more medics arrived, he’d lapsed into a non-communicative state, and his pulse had turned thready and weak. His constitution began to fail, and in my estimation as a doctor I cannot see how he survived long enough to reach an aid station.
    Yet, the silence as to his fate, from all parties including himself, makes me question whether the medics even reached their field destination. You must remember, we were in the middle of a siege, the artillery and mortar stirring a fog so thick that a man could barely see hisweapon, let alone where to point it. It is possible the medics who carried him fell, alongside Linus.
    I am so sorry. I truly understand the biting ache of not knowing the fate of the ones you love. I myself left family in a precarious situation when I went to war, and I pray for them daily. I can only hope that my dedication to my task has made them proud, and that in the end, it will benefit them. I miss my family greatly, and without information as to their health, the wound festers.
    My father is a doctor, much beloved in our city. I grew up watching him tend the wounds of Iowa farmers, sturdy stock that they are. I even assisted him as he turned to veterinary medicine one day and delivered a breeched calf. I sat in the straw, holding the birth-slick animal as it struggled in my arms, and a piece of light burned in me, so fresh, so vivid I could taste the heat in my mouth. I knew then I would be a healer, someone who comforts. Alas, I barely passed my exams before the government pressed me to war.
    Enough of those brutal memories. You asked me if you could contact my family. Thank you for your kind offer, but I fear they have moved, the war demanding that they find relatives that might harbor them. I cling to a fragile hope they are safely moored on my uncle’s farm just south of the border, in Iowa. You may write to my cousin, Dorothy Hess, there, and ask her, perhaps. Unfortunately, I don’t have their address, having left it in my supplies on the battlefield. I dream, however, of returning home,to my mother’s kitchen, savory with the scent of onions and fried cabbage. She makes a kuchen that could call me from distant lands.
    I had forgotten how beautiful Wisconsin is, the rolling hills, like waves upon the horizon falling over sandstone ravines. I stood in a field of peas today, agog with the color of oaks and cedar against a cerulean sky. Black Angus lounged like boulders, and I wished, for a moment, the world might stop and breathe in the peace of the unblemished morning. The other man inside of me could have been a farmer.
    Do you live on a farm, perhaps? I am sadly ignorant of the cities in Wisconsin. Is Roosevelt large?
    Finally, you asked about my health. I am uninjured, in the basic sense of the word. Of course, can one endure the loss of comrades without bearing wounds? And I fear I will never again lay my head on my pillow without hearing the thunder of shelling or the brutal staccato of machine gun fire. Perhaps, indeed, I shouldn’t.
    I will admit that your letter surprised me. And selfishly, I hope you will write again. But more, I pray that your friend Linus returns safely home to you, and that all of your grief will be for