Hope - Lesley Pearse [229]
Without stopping to think, Hope dropped her bag and darted towards him.
‘Get away,’ Robbie yelled at her when he saw her coming. But she ignored his order, reached him and rolled him over on to his back.
A bullet whizzed past her ear, so close that she felt the heat of it, but she put her two hands under his arms and hauled him backwards towards the row of tents.
He was a big, heavy man and her arms felt as though they were being pulled right out of their sockets, but still she yanked and tugged, ignoring yet another bullet which came dangerously close.
‘Are we out of range now?’ she asked breathlessly once they were through the first row of tents.
‘I thought we were out of range back there,’ he said weakly. ‘They must have moved closer, but we should be all right here.’
Hope laid him down. His thigh was a gory mess, but with his breeches on it was impossible to tell how bad the wound really was. She tore off the sash from around her dress to make a tourniquet and fastened it above the wound, then stood up to pull off her petticoat to use it to staunch the bleeding.
Still the firing continued, and as she held the cloth over Robbie’s injured thigh she looked around frantically for help. Seeing a soldier further down the line of tents, she jumped up and shouted at him, waving her arms.
Something hot and stinging hit her left arm. She sank down beside Robbie, supporting her arm with her right hand. ‘Bugger me, I’ve been shot too,’ she said.
The wound was between her elbow and wrist, a patch of crimson bloody flesh some two inches wide beneath a hole in the sleeve of her blue dress. She had seen hundreds of far worse wounds and barely turned a hair. It didn’t even hurt much, but the sight of it made her feel faint.
‘I hope that soldier gets someone,’ she said weakly. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be much more use to you, Robbie. Loosen that tourniquet in a minute, then tighten it again in a little while.’
‘Hope! Wake up!’
Bennett splashed cold water on her face, then tore what remained of her sleeve away from the wound on her arm.
‘Is that you, Bennett?’ she asked feebly, her eyes still closed.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ he said. ‘You are in the hospital now. You fainted.’
‘Is Robbie here too?’
‘Yes, he’s here too. Right beside you. Open your eyes and you’ll see him.’
Bennett felt faint himself. He’d heard the gunfire, but there was nothing unusual about it, so he’d hardly looked up from what he was doing. Then someone had yelled out to him that there were two down and one was a woman. For some unaccountable reason he’d known it was Hope.
Rifleman Tomlinson was already carrying her towards the hospital as Bennett ran to get her.
She lay so lifeless in the man’s arms, her dark curls cascading down and her face like chalk, that for one terrible moment he’d thought she was dead.
‘I think she’s only fainted, sir,’ Tomlinson said. ‘She’s been shot in the arm. She dragged Robbie away from the firing. Bravest thing I ever saw.’
In the second or two before he pulled himself together to take Hope from Tomlinson’s arms and saw that her wound was a fairly minor one, Bennett felt a stab of white-hot agony run through his entire body.
As a doctor he knew that anyone, even his beloved wife, could fall prey to disease, but he’d never for one moment imagined she’d be shot at. He had had many close shaves himself, but then, he and his assistant often ran to collect the wounded under fire.
‘Come on, dearest, open your eyes,’ he said tenderly, smoothing back her hair from her face.
Her lovely dark eyes opened and she half-smiled at him, then turned her head to look at Robbie lying beside her. ‘Will he be all right?’ she whispered.
‘I think so, thanks to you,’ he said. ‘You got that tourniquet on quickly and covered the wound. I’m going to take the bullet out now. You haven’t got one in you, it skimmed past.’
Bennett dressed Hope’s wound and gave her a few sips of brandy, then took over from the orderly who was cleaning Robbie up in readiness for the bullet to be removed. Compared